


Hit the Lights On Your Way Out

by hakuraimaru



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Auras, Eventual Fluff, M/M, Psychic Abilities, Psychic Nico
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-15
Updated: 2014-08-19
Packaged: 2018-02-04 17:00:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 26,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1786504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hakuraimaru/pseuds/hakuraimaru
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At the beginning of his third year at New Rome University, Jason is invited to meet Hazel's brother at a local bar and dance club. What starts as an awkward half-reunion turns into a hesitant friendship — but as the bond between the two evolves, Jason is entrusted with a secret and a burden, and he takes it upon himself to lighten his friend's load.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Unusual Algae and Provocative Women

When Jason entered The Labyrinth, he had no idea what he was walking into. 

He squeezed in between the unpruned hedges of the back entryway after Hazel, noting the unnerving, rhythmic  _chak-chak_ of the musty air conditioner unit encircled by weeds. He'd let the freshman talk him into visiting the bar and dance club her brother worked at, despite his distaste for most college joints; he preferred to avoid the mobs of hormone-and-alcohol-doused students after one too many wild nights his own freshman year. She'd seemed so excited to go, though, and he didn't have the heart to reject her earnest invitation for, what, another night of  _Call of Duty?_ Nah. She'd had a rough transition from their small high school to attending New Rome University, so seeing her excited to leave campus was a welcome change. The last time he'd seen her outside of NRU's campus, in fact, was the day of his high school graduation, a little more than three years ago -- she'd been so quietly confident, despite the small size of their friend group, that the contrast between then and now was polar. These first few weeks were harsh on most freshmen, though, and Hazel was surprisingly resilient, so all in all she was doing well enough.

"Alright, I'm gonna try and find Frank," Hazel turned back to him once the door clicked shut behind them. "My brother's kind of...particular, so I'll come find you later. Just make sure not to go onto the floor alone unless you're trying to pick up airheads," she laughed.

"Yeah, sure," Jason agreed. Only once she was gone did he wonder how she had the keys to the back, but brushed the thought aside as he ventured towards the bar.

The bartender was an attractive redhead, and was half-engaged in conversation with another patron when he sat down. He listened in for a couple of minutes --

"...and I swear, he came back the next day like, 'Alright, Red, I dunno what the hell you're taking, but I'll take two!' And sure enough, every part of it happened to a T."

"Even the blood cyclones?"

"Oh, you wouldn't believe it, Percy -- some typhoon picked up some red algae colonies and blew right by his beach house. No idea what kind of algae is red, but you're the sea expert, you should know this stuff anyway."

"Come to think of it, I may have read something about a tornado off the coast of South Carolina..." The guy she was talking to, whom Jason recognized as Percy from his Theory of the Mind class last year and their Plato seminar this year, suddenly noticed Jason and grinned. "Jason Grace, what's up?" he beckoned. "Sorry I've been distracting Rachel from her actual job, do you want anything?"

"Pretty sure that's  _my_ question, Percy," the bartender chuckled. "What can I get for you, Jason?"

"Uh, anything interesting, like a local draft?" He winced internally at his unfamiliarity with the entire setting. He could barely order a beer after 2, going on 3, years in the college scene.

Thankfully, the bartender (Red? Rachel?) seemed used to clueless patrons, and gave him a squirt of an oaky dark lager from some northwestern state, and he quickly ordered a glass.

"So what brings you to The Labyrinth, Jason? I haven't seen you here before," Percy turned to him comfortably. "You didn't come alone?"

"Nah, I came with Hazel Levesque," Jason explained. "Her half-brother works here, right?"

"Oh, you mean Nico," Percy nodded. "Yeah, I haven't seen him once this year. That's not saying much, I guess, since we're only, what, 3 weeks in? He kinda avoids me...well, he avoids people, anyway." Jason felt another twinge of discomfort at knowing he'd have to tango through a conversation with another socially awkward kid. "So you've heard about Professor Aphrodite, right?"

"No, what happened?"

" _Another_ son out of wedlock, and New Rome's not taking it well, not that it's really their business -- there are a couple rumors that it was with a student, but no one really knows. They're pissed because it's like the fifth maternity leave she's taken in the past 7 years, like you remember how she was a month late coming into our Theory of the Mind seminar, and --" Percy suddenly clammed up. Jason followed his stare, turning around to see a pretty, dark-haired Asian girl approach the barstool next to him. He glanced back at Percy, who mouthed,  _"Aphrodite's daughter,"_ and Jason gave a slight nod. That was close.

"Who's the newbie?" she breathed, engulfing Jason with the scent of apple blossoms and vanilla, sweet and artificial. He dared to glance up at her tall and elegant figure, meeting her dark and coquettish gaze.

"Jason, this is Drew Tanaka," Percy coughed as though he were interrupting. "Drew, Jason Grace."

"So glad you  _graced_ this joint with your presence, Jason," Drew smiled. Jason wondered how many more times he would have to suppress a wince that night. He forced a chuckle to appease her as she took the seat next to him.

"You must be from NRU," she fluttered. "Senior?"

"Junior," Jason corrected. "And you?"

"Oh, I'm a junior, too! So you've declared your major?"

"Yeah, Philosophy," he smiled slightly. "I'm applying to law school after I graduate, though."

"A man of justice, huh?" Jason was silently in awe of how quickly that girl's eyelids could move. She made flirting a work of art. "Impressive. I admire ambition."

"Uh, what about you?" Jason glanced away, slightly flustered.

"Communications," she replied instantly. "I've always found presentations to be very fascinating."

"Definitely," Jason agreed, stealing a glance at Percy and the bartender, who both looked away, stifling laughs.

"So, do you do a lot of dancing, Jace?" Drew made a movement to slide off her stool. "Help me down?" 

He felt a tap on his other shoulder and almost whipped around. "Jason, my brother's almost done with his shift," Hazel interjected, and he could have hugged her out of relief.

He still offered his hand to Drew, trying to mask his air of reluctance. "Sorry, I'm not particularly good, and I have to meet a friend. It was nice meeting you, Drew," he smiled weakly. An expression of distaste flitted across Drew's face but was quickly replaced with an almost doleful smile.

"Pleasure meeting you as well, Jason. Toodeloo," she waved, leaving in a swathe of sparkling fabric.

"Jesus, Jason, I can't leave you alone for two seconds," Hazel giggled under her breath as he rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. "C'mon, he'll let us into the Blue Box if we get there before the next song."

He followed her to a frameless black door right at the edge of the bar, so subtle it faded into the wall when they were ten feet away. She gave a quiet knock on what sounded like plywood, and the door cracked open readily.

"Close it behind you," the figure in the chair mumbled, and Jason obliged. The DJ hadn't turned around yet, but was fairly scrawny from what Jason could see, with long, thick black hair pulled back into a wispy ponytail. The headphones dwarfed him. Meanwhile, Jason could see why they called it the Blue Box, with a couple of blacklights and the light from computer monitors, mixers and control boards giving the room an eerie blue-violet glow. One large, lonely monitor showed the dance floor, which had a reasonable crowd on it.

"Nico," Hazel leaned down and kissed her brother's cheek. "I brought my friend Jason Grace."

Nico slid his headphones off, turning in his chair to survey Jason. "Oh, hi."

"Nice to meet you, Nico," Jason extended a hand. Nico looked at it for a moment before looking away.

"We were in the same freshman Bio seminar," he said without looking back up. Jason thought for a moment before remembering.

"Oh, shit, my bad. That was so long ago -- good to see you, man!" he covered his embarrassment with a grin. Nico's eyes flickered back to him, settling on him dryly before darting away again. Jason cursed himself for not remembering. "Wait, are we in the same Epics class?"

"Yeah," Nico looked back and gave a quick nod. 

_Hey, at least I remembered that much!_ Jason thought triumphantly.

"Have you started on the Gilgamesh reading?"

"Yeah, I..." Nico stopped, and the resulting pause was awkward.

"I've read bits and pieces of _The Epic of Gilgamesh_ before, but those were just fragments in my freshman Civilizations class. I'm glad Professor Chiron gives us light reading assignments. What do you think of the class discussions so far?"

"They're alright," Nico shrugged. He paused, then added, "I'm impressed with the depth of analysis thus far."

_Alright, we're getting somewhere._ "Yeah, I can't wait to get to _Paradise Lost._  Our high school did an awful job of covering it, right, Hazel?"

"Oh god, Mrs. Arachne had  _no_ idea what she was talking about. She was always spinning a web to nowhere," she laughed. Just then, the door swung open and a tall man slipped in.

"Good job, Nico, you drew in a nice crowd," he gave a thumbs up. "I'll let you off now."

"Thanks," Nico returned the gesture as he rose, stretching a bony but muscular arm over his head. "You could probably find Drew now," he turned back to Jason. Hazel bit her lip to keep from bursting into giggles as Jason rubbed his temples.

"Not interested. No offense to her or anything."  _Definitely too much for me to handle, anyhow._

"Oh," Nico raised his brows, surprised.

"But I should get going, I still have a reading left for another class. Hazel, are you coming?"

"No, Nico hasn't eaten yet, so we're grabbing a bite from Il Alloro," she looked back at her brother; Jason could tell this was news to him, but there was no argument. "We'll see you later, Jason!"

"Good to see you," Nico gave him a rare almost-smile, the corner of his mouth twitching up.

"Sure, see ya," he waved over his shoulder as he headed to the bar and put down a ten. "No change, uh, Rachel?"

"You got it, thanks!" she offered a chipper smile as she wiped the counter past him. "Thinking of DJing, Jason?"

"Huh? Ah, no," he shook his head, "I was visiting Hazel's brother Nico."

"Oh, I getcha," Rachel nodded. "Good luck with that. He needs to get out more; I've never seen him talk to anyone but Hazel. Seems like a cool dude." She withdrew her rag thoughtfully. "Come back soon, Jason. We could use another  _reasonable_ regular!"

"You got it," Jason grinned. As he wove through a muddle of people near the door, he considered Rachel's words.  _Come back soon..._ it had seemed less a business request and more a personal one. And he admitted to himself, as he followed the streetlights back to his dorm, that he was curious about Hazel's brother, the strange guy from his Epics in English class, Nico. 

_Couldn't hurt,_ he thought with a shrug as he keyed in and let the door snap shut behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey y'all, hope this is an okay start! This is my first fanfiction in about 4 or 5 years, but the wonderfulness that is Jasico roped me back in :) feel free to leave thoughts in the comments section! (Or wherever, I'm new to AO3 so I haven't the faintest idea...)  
> Can't promise when I'll update next, but hopefully sometime in the next week! The action should kick up around then...


	2. The Gross Overuse of the Word "Awesome"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jason comes back to The Labyrinth, solo. Books are the basis of everything awesome.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, y'all! Thanks so so much for all the positive feedback!! :D I'm eager to pump out more chapters ASAP -- my schedule is still up in the air, so I'm unsure how regularly I can update, but I'll hopefully finish by August at the latest!

The Labyrinth was very different on a Tuesday night, Jason noticed. The light, bubbly-drunken air of the joint from last Saturday had turned into a mellow dullness, even the spotty orange and green lights looking dampened with a blue-grey wash. Percy, Hazel and, thankfully, Drew were all absent from the scene, with no more than four other people present altogether and none dancing. 

"Jason?" Rachel chirped from the bar, and he gave a grateful smile as he sat down across from her. "Didn't expect to see you so soon!"

"Ah, I just couldn't stay away," Jason chuckled. "Professor Atlas forgot to assign homework."

"Atlas? I think I've heard about him. Used to be a nice guy until he took on too much at once; he's been trying to weasel out of it ever since. Probably 'forgot' your homework so he wouldn't have to hold an actual class," she smirked. "That doesn't explain why you came here, though..."

"You're right next to the Chinese place," he motioned with an apologetic smile. "Anyway, you shouldn't be questioning your sane patrons!"

"Pff, I'm not worried. Once they come back the second time, you know they're hooked. Try this," she prompted, pulling a glass of amber frothiness from nowhere, and only then did Jason realize she'd been filling it before. He sipped it and was hit by a strong maple sweetness, along with a tinge of some kind of melon flavor. _Cantaloupe, maybe?_

"Hooked indeed," he mumbled. "I didn't know non-shitty beer, like, existed before this place."

"You haven't lived yet, Jason Grace. This stuff's from Virginia; pretty good because it's been sitting in the Appalachians for so long. We've had  _way_ better, though. I'd say our best came from Maine this once -- there's probably better stuff out West, but we try not to import from too far away -- made by the uncle of..."

Rachel was capable of clawing an ear off with her words, but when she talked about beer, her stabs of words turned into fluid currents, still overwhelming but sort of a pleasure to be soaked by. Jason wondered what else moved her from her typical grinning banter into this absorbing state of flow. Not many people could make methods of fermentation sound interesting, as he knew well from unmemorable freshman Bio lectures. 

Just then, two things happened simultaneously.

First, Jason remembered a younger Nico in that lecture, ignoring his whispered plea for a napkin as Jason's Coke trickled off his desk onto the fellow freshman's notes. Once the professor had taken a pause in his drawl about the wonders of yeast, Nico had reached in his backpack and handed Jason a wad of napkins without looking, wiping his own papers off on his shirt with a slight scowl.

_"Thanks, and sorry!"_ Jason had whispered, feeling even worse when the other student didn't respond, having returned to note-taking.

Second, the door swung open and a tall, dark-haired woman walked in, batting her lashes as she surveyed the room. Jason could smell apple and vanilla on her, and slight panic set in as he looked away quickly, determined not to make eye contact.

"Oh shit, I forgot to warn you. She comes at eleven o'clock sharp most nights, Jason," Rachel muttered before moving to the other end of the bar and flashing an impossibly cheerful smile. "Drew, you look ravishing. The usual?"

"As always," the elegant woman smiled almost impatiently, but thankfully didn't notice Jason right away. He left another ten on the counter and made for the Blue Box without a second thought, knocking a tad too loudly and a tad too desperately. The pause was almost questioning -- and then the door cracked open.

"Close it behind you," Nico said, fiddling with a dial. "Is something wrong, Hazel?"

"Er, it's Jason," Jason gritted his teeth, half-expecting Nico's reaction as he tore off his headphones and turned around incredulously.

"What are you  _doing_ here?"

"Well, Drew showed up and I have a feeling she's not used to being shut down, so I figured I'd just avoid the power button," Jason joked. Nico continued staring at him blankly.  _Great joke, dumbass._ "Uh, I wanted to avoid talking to her?"

"This isn't a free-for-all shelter from your inamoratas, Grace," Nico snapped. "It's a workplace, and we're not hiring. Go on," he made a shooing motion, turning back around. He looked back glaringly when Jason hadn't moved.

_Wow, nice job, Jason, you look like asshole superb. Let's try round 2._

"Look, I'm sorry," Jason rubbed the back of his neck embarrassedly, "I actually _did_ want to stop by again, this is a really cool setup, uh, and I thought it would be okay if I didn't bring Hazel. I mean, we're friends, right?" Nico didn't respond, and Jason felt something sink a little in his stomach. "But I can come back with her some other time if that's better."

"...have you ever seen a mixer before?" he grumbled, almost too quietly for Jason to hear. He tugged the headphones off of his neck irritably and handed them back to Jason, who stared at them for a moment before putting them on. The bubbly techno music faded into the middle of some Norah Jones song, and Jason wondered why on earth this would be played at a dance club, until the same line started playing over and over again. He looked over at Nico, confused, and the other junior gave a slight, smirking smile.

"It's on an 8-bar loop," he explained, turning back to the dials and fiddling more. An electronic mish-mash of chords clashed with the old-timey feel that Nico had started with, with a couple whimsical noises sprinkled in to add to the tension; then he slid 3 dials down, leaving nothing but Jones's regret about not coming (Jason bit back an innuendo) before sliding them back up and flicking another switch, adding the  _thud-thud-thud-thud_ of a deafening bass.

"You just dropped the bass, right?" Jason handed back the headphones.

" _Yes,_ Grace," Nico chuckled dryly, replacing the headphones over his ponytail. He raised his eyebrows. " _Buono_ , that could have gone worse..."

"That's  _so_ cool," Jason smiled broadly, poring over the different controls. "And you did that just by turning these...?"

"Don't touch anything," Nico warned.

"Do you do this every night? How do you have the time?"

"I get all my work done in the afternoons," he replied uncomfortably, "and I'm not really part of the night scene, so..."

Jason wondered if Nico was part of  _any_ scene. "Wow, that's some kind of devotion. Are you gonna be, like, a music producer or anything?"

"Ah, no," Nico shook his head. "Just a...hobby, I guess?" He fell silent. Jason could tell there was more to his reasoning but decided to let it go, sensing that Nico seemed like the type to appreciate his space.

"It's an awesome one. Is that  _The Iliad?"_ Jason glanced over at a sloppy pile of books off to the corner of the desk.

"Huh? Eh- yeah, that's the graphic novel version," Nico said, taking it from the bottom of the pile. He handed it to Jason without looking; Jason could see a faint blush tinge his pale olive complexion. "I read the actual poem first," he added defensively.

"So the whole thing's illustrated?" Jason thumbed through and was immediately caught up in the sharp colors, pausing at a full page depiction of Achilles's stance against the Trojans with Athena's blessing. "Whoa, that's awesome!"

"I'm beginning to assume that your vocabulary is limited to 'awesome'. Have you seriously never seen a graphic novel?"

"I mean, I've seen comics before," Jason shrugged, earning a snicker from Nico as he twisted a couple of dials disinterestedly.

"They're completely different," Nico shook his head. "I mean, I've had my run with comics, but lumping them together is like calling episodes of "Adventures of Superman" and "Man of Steel" the same thing, you know?"

"Yeah, I guess? I don't have much to compare," Jason chuckled sheepishly.

Nico hesitated. "...I don't want to keep you. I'm here for another hour, you know...you can take that book, though, if you'll have time to read it."

"Really? Thanks, man!" Jason beamed.

"Just make sure to give it back," Nico added a little dangerously.

"Yeah, of course." Jason moved towards the door. "Well, I'll see you, Nico. And I'll have this sucker read by then, too!" _  
_

"Heh, I'll hold you to it," Nico waved him out with a faint grin.

 

* * *

 

"Nico, hold up!" Jason called, a couple of people behind the crow's nest of black hair in the small mob coming from their Epics in English class. He didn't stop, so Jason wove his way through until he came up behind Nico and tapped his shoulder. Nico flinched away violently, whipping around and relaxing slightly upon recognizing Jason.

"Jesus, Grace, don't do that," Nico growled. "I'm not a fan of physical contact."

"Sorry, I thought you didn't hear me," Jason explained, a little perplexed.

"Yeah..." Nico seemed to bristle for a moment longer before gathering himself. "Did you finish --"

"Yeah, it was incredible!" Jason grinned, twisting to pull the book from his backpack. He was silently and deeply relieved that he hadn't spilled his coffee on it that morning, a fate that his anthology of Homer's work hadn't been so lucky to have escaped. "It really is different from comics. Everything's so cohesive, for one..."

"That, and the art style is so much more complete, you know? Not just that everything's fully colored, but there are so many stylistic choices the author has to make, and so much personal touch throughout the entire book," he emphasized by spreading his hands apart, "and then because it's an adaptation you get to compare the author's interpretation of different lines, scenes, characters..." His hands made small circles as he raised a finger with each item he listed. "Adaptations of old classics are always great because there's been so much discussion and debate over the meaning of every single detail that you know that everything has to be intentional, and you can read into just about everything without going too far. There are a lot of fantastic autobiographies out there, though, and those are just as intentional and personal, of course..." He trailed off without warning, sticking his hands into his pockets as he seemed to realize how much he'd been talking.

"Oh man, I didn't even consider that when I was reading it. I bet there are a lot of them out there. Which other ones have you read?"

"Well,  _The Odyssey_ was the obvious follow up to  _The Iliad,_ " Nico started, "and  _Beowulf_  had a fantastic adaptation as well. It also has a cyberpunk remake, but I haven't gotten my hands on a copy yet.  _Fahrenheit 451_ was great, same with _Great Expectations_  and, umm, _The Picture of Dorian Gray_ ,although those aren't epics or anything...and then  _Maus_ is a pretty well-known autobiography, or kind of. It's mostly from the author's father's point of view," Nico explained. 

"Where do you get all this time?" Jason shook his head, impressed, before remembering that Nico's social life was virtually inexistent. He could have punched himself. "I mean, I need to find more time to read this stuff. They're so...striking."

"Exactly...I actually have  _Maus_ back at The Labyrinth," Nico mused. He hesitated again, like he had when offering the book in the first place. "If you want to pick it up tonight, I'll be in until 11:30..."

"Yeah, that'd be great!" Jason grinned widely. "I've got an essay for my Plato seminar, but I've got a head start on it. I'll stop by around 10?"

"Yeah, I'll see you then," Nico returned the smile, a little nervously but fuller than before.

As he walked away, Jason realized that at some point within those past few days, he had decided to make a conscious effort to befriend his shaggy, brooding classmate. Maybe he wanted to give Hazel one less thing to worry about; maybe he felt bad that anyone was next to friendless in a place as big as New Rome U, and after 2 full years, too; and maybe he was hoping for a mellower friend, inasmuch as he loved Piper and Leo, to enjoy less chaotic surroundings with. In any case, he was positively triumphant as he scaled the stairs to his next class, eager for nighttime for the first time in a while.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies to any actual DJs out there, because I have just about zero idea on how mixers and cool things like that actually work! Next chapter, hoping to tap into some backstories and hopefully get a change in setting ^.^ Many thanks for reading, all!!


	3. Well, That Could Have Gone Better -- Or Much, Much Worse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jason returns to the Blue Box for the third time. Nico is less than thrilled.

"Thanks," Jason nodded briskly, collecting his change before leaving with two bags of brownies from The Parthenon, NRU's student-run café.

Earlier that afternoon, when he approached her door to ask if she wanted to accompany him to The Labyrinth, Jason had happened to hear Hazel griping to Nico over the phone.  _"You can't live off of ramen for the rest of your life!"_ she'd half-shouted, exasperated. Jason had decided to come back some other time, but as he thought about it, he realized that Nico  _looked_ like he hadn't eaten anything but ramen since the term had started. Thus, brownies. The Parthenon's particular, extraordinarily cheap brownies were Jason's favorite edible delicacy, his sole comfort while writing papers in the wee hours, and he couldn't imagine anyone not deriving the same pleasure from them.

Rain drenched him on his way to The Labyrinth. It suddenly occurred to him, when the bar was  _finally_ in sight through the downpour after 30 minutes of walking, that food might not be welcome in the Blue Box. Technological hubs generally did not take kindly to crumbs in between keys or jammed in buttons. Furthermore, he'd never seen Nico eat in there, either...although that probably had less to do with the Blue Box and more to do with Nico.

_Well, too late for regrets, 'cause there's no way I'm getting a refund._

"Jason, what are you doing without a jacket on, moron?" Rachel stared at him as he entered, shaking himself off at the door. He grinned sheepishly.

"I didn't anticipate the weather," he explained, hand moving to its place on the back of his neck.

"Well, borrow Percy's coat then!" she exclaimed. Percy perked up from his stool in front of her.

"Huh? Yeah, go ahead, it's on the coat rack over there," he offered.

"It's really okay," Jason waved them off, "but thanks anyway. I'm not gonna get sick or anything, I have a pretty high body temperature."

"Hear that, Rachel? Jason's too hot for minor afflictions like pneumonia," Percy deadpanned before his mouth curved up in a grin. Rachel snorted as Jason laughed embarrassedly.

"Oh yeah, I can burn away swine flu just by looking at it," he joked. "Listen, I'd stay and chat but I'm bringing these puppies," he held up the brownies showily, "to the Blue Box."

Rachel's smile dampened notably. "Jason, it might not be a...well, I'd keep low if I were you."

Jason opened his mouth to ask what she meant, but felt a buzzing in his pocket. He checked his phone and saw that it was Leo calling. He swiped to answer, wondering why in the world Leo would be calling him at 10:08 at night when he instantaneously remembered --

"Where  _are_ you? We've been waiting outside your room for thirty minutes, man! They're givin' us the stink eye here!"

"Damn, I'm sorry, Leo," Jason pinched his forehead, "I completely forgot to tell you guys, I can't come tonight."

"You're telling us  _now??"_

"I mean, we just have the essays due tomorrow, it's not like we have to go over any reading. I'm sorry, man, I thought it wouldn't matter."

"Huh?" There was a pause on the other line. "Piper's pissed, Jace. We were gonna go over 'em tonight when we all finished. Where are you, anyway?"

"The Labyrinth."

"What the hell are you doing, becoming the Maze Runner?"

"It's a bar, but I'm here to meet a friend-"

"Who is this, and what have you done with Jason Grace? What 'friend' could get  _you,_ of all fucking people, out of your dorm at ten at night with an essay due the next day?"

"I'm halfway done," Jason defended, "and, uh, it's Nico di Angelo. He has weird work hours, but we started hanging out..."

There was another pause, this time without any murmurs on the other line. "Nico? Umm, no offense, but that guy kinda freaks me out. Like, I see him all the time, and he's never made eye contact with me. Plus he's all silent and brooding and stuff. Why him?"

"He se- he's a cool guy," Jason replied, somewhat assertively. "He knows a lot about comics and, um, graphic novels and stuff. He seems kinda nerdy, you'd probably like him," he chuckled.

"Eh, I only need one dufus friend at a time," Leo shot back, and Jason could almost hear his grin. "Just don't go and replace us with some goth or anything." He stopped, and Jason could hear his muffled voice say, "Uhuh. Yeah,  _Nico_." Leo's voice came back to full volume. "Yeah, Pipes says to get your butt back here ASAP."

"I'll be back by eleven," Jason promised. "See ya." He ended the call and slipped towards the plywood door before any more road blocks could pop up. 

Jason knocked lightly. When he cracked the door open slowly and squeezed through quietly, Nico had his headphones off and turned back slowly to look at him. The bags under his eyes were no darker than before, but he somehow seemed much more tired and melancholy than he had that afternoon.

"...I wasn't expecting you to show," he muttered. Jason was stung. He looked down at his phone and -- shit, he was fifteen minutes late.

"Of course I was going to show. Sorry I'm so late, though, I got stopped at the bar and it was raining on my way over. But my bad."

Nico held out a dull-colored paperback that had been resting on his lap, eyes trained on the ground, and Jason took it, wordlessly scanning over the back cover to reach the synopsis. He wasn't a particularly fast reader.

"...wow, it sounds awesome," Jason grinned. "Depressing, though. Does Spielberg have any other books?"

"Spiegelman," Nico gave a short, toneless laugh, "and he wrote a sequel and a companion book. Don't know any others by him."

"Thanks for letting me borrow it," Jason looked back over at Nico, who was staring darkly at nothing in particular. Jason cleared his throat. "I brought brownies."

Nico glanced back at him, and Jason untied the bag. "They're my favorites. I mean, they're just from the university's café, but they're pretty good." He picked a big one and took an absurdly big bite from it, holding the bag down to Nico with a brown-stained grin.

Nico stared at them dully without taking any. He finally spoke after a long pause. "Thanks for the thought, Jason. Listen, I'm sorry...now's not a great time."

"No time like the present?" Jason joked weakly. Nico's head turned ever so slightly up towards him, glaring, and his eyes flashed menacingly. Jason felt a twinge claw its way up his spine and was almost scared of the other guy. Not even almost -- he was wigged out. His face must have betrayed him, because Nico suddenly grimaced, biting his lip as he looked away, shrinking into his chair. He was the picture of shame.

"I get it," Jason nodded, disappointed. "I'll come back some other time. And I'll have your Seagull-man book finished by then, too." He dropped the brownies in Nico's lap as he made for the door.

He had just touched the door handle when he heard an almost inaudible mumble. "Wait."

Jason stood without moving, his hand resting lightly on the handle, for a good minute. He dared to glance back and saw Nico's eyebrows furrowed in frustration, his face conflicted. He stayed patiently still, waiting for the other to say something.

"I'm sorry," he finally said, glancing around and finally meeting Jason's eyes nervously. "I really do appreciate you coming, Jason. I wish I were better company right now, but-" he cut himself off. Jason walked back towards Nico and sat on the floor beside his chair.

"But?"

Nico gritted his teeth. "...I got laid off today. They -- er, my boss, Minos -- decided to cut dance floor hours, so there's really only one shift's worth. Pollux got offered the full-time job. It doesn't really matter, though, I couldn't have worked full-time anyway..."

"But it would've been nice if they offered," Jason nodded, letting out a huff. "That  _sucks,_ man. Did you need the money?" he asked before realizing the invasiveness of the question. "Sorry, you don't need to answer, it's none of my business," he added quickly, but Nico was already shaking his head.

"It's fine. It wasn't the money. I didn't even particularly like my job. Remixing music is cool, but there are better pre-mixed playlists online than what I was making, and I hate most of the modern hits I have to mix from, anyway." Jason noticed Nico was tinged red and averting his eyes. "I...I mostly liked just having somewhere to be."

"Don't you have any extracurriculars?" Jason trained his eyes on the other. There was no response. "Nico, you're not part of any clubs or anything?"

"I told you, I get my work done in the afternoons so I can work. I worked here most of sophomore year, too." He scowled, darkening as he kept his eyes away from Jason's. "Don't even ask about freshman year."

 _I'm_ definitely _asking about freshman year later,_ Jason thought. "Your dorm does stuff, though, right?"

"Maybe. Dunno," he shrugged tensely. "We don't have more than one funded event a year, so everything else is all students. Meaning you have to hear about it," he smiled dryly, gaze still harsh and averted. "I've ended up in exclusively singles since sophomore year began. You know, I probably freak them out."

"Their loss," Jason replied. "You don't even keep up with your freshman roommates?"

"First semester guy and I hated each other. We spoke all of two times. The dude from the second semester was alright, but he stayed out of my way as much as he could. There was, you know, 'stuff' going around. About me," he clarified, although Jason had already guessed. He looked back towards Jason, fixing his intimidating stare on him. "I have friends. Percy, Annabeth and I have known each other since high school. And I obviously have Hazel, so I know Frank, too."

"And me," Jason added quietly, a challenge. Nico's glare briefly slipped into shocked blink.

"...and you," he agreed. "Point is, I have more than enough friends."

 _How do you go through three years of college and only know five people?_ Jason thought.  _And when's the last time you actually did anything with them?_  He bit back the questions. "Nico, you're gonna have your afternoons free now, right? You should hang out with me, Piper and-"

"You can't  _adopt_ me, Jason," Nico growled, glaring tigerishly at him. He paused, then seemed to calm himself, though he still appeared quite irritated. "You can't just assimilate me into your friend group, you know. We're not freshmen, it's not fair to them or to you, or to me either when it doesn't wor-"

"Dammit, Nico," Jason cut him off sharply, "it's ridiculous for you to keep selling yourself short like this!"

The other stared at him icily, with just enough fury in his eyes to chill Jason to the bone. His silence was a dare, though, Jason could feel that, and he continued, treading more carefully with his words.

"I dunno about you, but I've enjoyed the past couple of days we've hung out, because you know, like, everything about stuff that I barely knew existed, and you're a really nice guy, even if you scare the crap out of me sometimes. Like  _The Iliad_ \-- who lends out their own books to guys they barely know?"

"I kind of have a class with you, I could have tracked you down for it," Nico muttered.

"That's beside the point," Jason waved him off. "Look, I'm definitely not desperate for friends, Nico, I already have a lot of great ones. I'm here because I  _want_ to be, and if you can get Jason Grace, down-to-business party dodger extraordinaire, to come to a bar at ten at night with a five-to-seven page essay due the next day, then there's no reason that a techie and a psych major wouldn't want you there."

"Fifteen," Nico grunted. Jason's brows squeezed together in confusion. "Ten  _fifteen_ at night."

Jason snorted, biting his lip to keep from grinning. "Fine. So can we expect you on Saturday for  _Casablanca?"_ _  
_

"N-...mmgh..." Nico pursed his lips, fingers curving into the fabric over his knees. "...if you leave me alone with them, I will dig your grave, pour gas over it and burn you in it, Grace."

"Is that a yes?"

"Yes,  _sciocco."_

Jason's usual grin flooded his face as he felt flushed with relief, the tension between the two almost evaporating and leaving the room as comfortable as it had ever been. "I'll text you about it closer to the day."

"You don't have my number," Nico pointed out.

" _Hazel_ has your number, though, although you _could_  save me the trouble and put it in now," he suggested, holding out his phone expectantly. Nico stared at it for a moment -- that guy would probably hesitate if a chainsaw were being thrown at him, Jason thought -- before taking it, clumsily entering a number in about four times, and handing it back wordlessly. "Cool, I'll let you know." Jason moved to get up, glancing at the time and knowing he'd be lucky to get back by eleven fifteen. "Well, I'd stay and chat, but I've got an essay to write. Enjoy the brownies. I'll see ya, Nico."

Jason glanced back as he opened the door, just as Nico muttered something without looking, too low for him to hear. He beamed briefly at him before closing the door behind him.

He thought he'd seen Nico mouth, "Thanks."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And thus were the beginnings of the broship forged! That was fun...next chapter is looking to be more Nico-focused, with a plot twist that will hopefully spice up this here plotline. Mwahah.  
> There will be a swap in viewpoints coming up pretty soon, just to put that out there! (Unless people come after me with flaming pitchforks and say that it's an awful idea. Always account for flaming pitchforks.)  
> Thanks for reading, hope you've enjoyed thus far!! :D


	4. Completely Unjustified Premonitions and Dentistry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jason texts Nico. Piper and Leo offer their opinions. Jason gets an unusual warning before brushing against death.

_Eh, shit,_ Jason thought blearily at 8:34 am, fumbling with the doorknob of his classroom before finally slinking in, murmuring a "sorry" before taking a seat and pulling out the  _Aeneid_. Professor Chiron gave him a stern glance but said nothing, returning to the discussion of Pyrrhus's background from the  _Iliad._  

He had expected, or rather, had hoped that the homework would be announced at the end of class; unfortunately, Chiron said nothing at the end aside from his routine "Don't forget the reading!" The price of tardiness, Jason reckoned; he didn't particularly want to ask the professor himself, not wanting to draw attention to his lateness, but figured that it would be easy enough to ask someone else about the assignment. He yawned as he pulled out his phone and sifted through his contacts.

_Dammit, I don't have Connor_ or _Annabeth's number,_ he realized with irritation. Aside from those two, he only knew Nico from his class, and he didn't have his-

Ah, right. He could text Nico.

>>[9:44am] hey man, do you have the assignment for epics?

He made his way across the quad and up the spiral staircase to his next class. He waited for a couple of minutes before checking his phone again. Nada. Nico didn't seem like the type to- er, scratch that, Nico seemed like  _exactly_ the type to keep his nose good and buried in his phone. Not that Jason had any way of knowing, anyhow. It occurred to him that while he had Nico's number, Nico probably did not have his.

>>[9:48am] this is jason btw, sorry!

No response. He checked back until ten, when Metaphysics couldn't wait any longer.

Jason had begun to wonder if Nico even carried a phone when he felt his pocket buzz. He checked it instantly --

_> > [12:12pm] Book VI through line 336, up to the Shores of Acheron. _

Jason was relieved.

>>[12:13pm] thanks man!!

He headed towards the cafeteria, not particularly expecting a reply. He was pleasantly surprised about five minutes later.

_> >[12:19pm] Why were you late?_

>>[12:19pm] freshman was having trouble getting to class, overestimated time before epics. tg chiron doesnt care that much

"Having trouble getting to class" was right. There was no lost-and-wandering-freshman routine involved here; Mitchell had made the mistake of (accidentally) irritating a couple of sophomore football players, who had thus taken the liberty of practicing their blocks on him. Jason had interrupted the harassment by barreling towards them as a running back and pretending to catch a ball from the freshman. Mitchell was eventually given the chance to steal away with an expression of only slight terror. Jason didn't worry for him, though. If the sophomores had actually cared what happened to the smaller freshman, Mitchell would never have gotten away in the first place.

_> >[12:23pm] I see. Good for you._

Jason paused, unsure whether to continue or not. He scooped a bowl of chowder and grabbed one of the semi-edible panini halves the cafeteria had pre-made (seriously, who could _possibly_ need that much mayo?) and scanned the tables until he found Reyna, his friend back from middle school. He regretted hardly having seen her freshman year, but by the end of sophomore year they had partially restored their closeness. She seemed slightly surprised to see him but greeted him with a brief smile before returning to her conversation. That much settled, Jason pulled out his phone.

>>[12:27pm] you still coming on sat?

_> >[12:29pm] I said I was coming, didn't I?_

_> >[12:29pm] Don't make me regret it._

_> >[12:30pm] Also, better to spell out Saturday than to remind us all of those godforsaken standardized tests._

>>[12:30pm] hah, imagine it with dyslexia

_> >[12:32pm] You haven't had any atrocious spellings yet..._

>>[12:33pm] autocorrect

_> >[12:33pm] Ah._

Jason didn't have a reply to that, but was cheered nonetheless as he bit into his dripping sandwich.

* * *

Panda's Place did not have the best atmosphere in the world. With its name, one might expect a relaxing spot for Chinese cuisine, some nice potted plants, probably some running water somewhere to give it a "zen" feel. As it so happened, however, Panda's Place served a cheap medley of burgers, steaks, pizza, pasta and a single dinky little salad that invariably came out drenched in sickly-sweet raspberry vinaigrette. The restaurant itself was like a carpeted fast food restaurant, but with bits and pieces of going-out-of-business-diner seating areas grafted into the back. Oddly enough, the spot was notably popular, perhaps for its peculiar stained-glass chandeliers that  _almost_ tied the place together, or perhaps for its dirt-cheap prices and free french fries.

Jason, however, would put his money on their burgers being the prime source of their popularity; wherever the beef came from, it had amazing flavor appreciable in both their steaks and their cheeseburgers, and they never skimped on toppings or condiments, either. Jason was enjoying one of said burgers Friday night, with Leo and Piper locked in debate.

"Are you kidding me?" Piper scoffed. "Bergman  _made_ that film. Sure, Bogart was great as the main role, but Bergman was so complex, and you can tell how intentional all of her choices as an actress are."

"Choices?" Leo knitted his brows. "What are you even talking about?" Piper sighed dramatically.

"Seriously, pay attention at the movie tomorrow. Listen for her inflections and watch her body language. There's a reason Hitchcock put her in three of his movies."

"Uh, speaking of the movie tomorrow," Jason butted in unexpectedly, "is it okay for me to invite- scratch that, is it okay that I invited my friend Nico?"

Both of them looked surprised; Piper looked slightly stunned, while Leo's jaw awkwardly gaped open midbite.

"You did  _what??"_ he stared, sounding disbelieving rather than angry.

"Is that not okay? He just got laid off, and he has free afternoons now, so I thought it'd be cool if he started hanging out with us more," he explained, sweating a little under Leo's continued gawking.

"...I mean, he's kinda creepy," Leo pointed out, glancing pointedly at Piper as though looking for back-up. She shrugged noncommittally, so Leo sighed and went on. "Like, he's in my dorm and no one ever sees him. He doesn't really go outside whenever there are people around. I roomed with him a while ago and we talked, like, twice or something? It was super awkward."

"When did you room with him?" Jason asked, a little scared for the answer.

"...freshman year, I think."

"What semester?" he pressed, panic rising in him slowly.

"First," Leo replied, then frowned. "Wait, no, second. I had that assclown Octavian first semester.  _That_ sucked." Jason sighed in utter relief.

"He does come off as a little antisocial, Jason," Piper admitted. "I'm not sure he would want to associate himself with us."

"But it wouldn't hurt to try, right?" Jason shot back, before blowing out air out of his nose gently. "Look, if you really don't want him to come, I'll make an excuse and reschedule with him. He's a really cool guy, though. He's big on graphic novels, Leo, isn't that right up your alley?"

Leo shrugged. "I'm more about comics."

"I think he knows those too. Point is, when I was dating Piper, you didn't want her hanging out with us either, and look how that turned out, right?"

"You didn't mention that she didn't suck," Leo muttered, scowling and reddening slightly. Piper only laughed.

"If you think it's a good idea, I'm okay with it," she turned back to Jason as she faded to a half-smile, voice tinged with reluctance.

Leo threw his hands up in mock surrender. "Y'know what? As long as he doesn't lurk around and weird us out or anything, then whatever. At least you're not trying to adopt a  _real_ asshole."

Jason knew that was the best he could hope for from Leo, and was satisfied. "Like who?" Piper prompted.

"Like fuckin'  _Octavian!"_ Leo exploded. "Did I tell you about the time he spilled coffee on my essay literally on my way to turn it in? Literally, what did I ever do to him?"

"Be in his class," Piper answered. "He makes you get a late penalty, you get a lower grade, the curve is more favorable towards him."

"Yeah, but no one actually  _thinks_  that way. It's sabotage!" he exclaimed indignantly.

"No one's arguing with you there," Jason shook his head with a scowl.

Finally, after continued recantations of the escapades of the Royal Assholes of New Rome, Jason got into the back seat of Leo's old, well-loved car. It really wouldn't have mattered whose car they took -- if it turned on and off, it was Leo's job. They hit the road and didn't find horrible traffic on the way back to campus. Jason was staring out the window when they stopped at a red light, noticing the pick-up truck in the turn lane beside them and wondering what the ladder in the truck bed was being used for, when he felt his back pocket vibrate. It was still buzzing as he took it out, and he checked who was calling.

_Nico? What...?_

He felt a twinge of anticipation as he picked up. "Hello?"

"God, Jason," the other voice exhaled, and Jason thought he heard it tremble. "Where are you?"

"On my way back to campus. We're at, uh," he glanced out the window, "Churchill Street. Why, is something wrong?"

"Okay, pull over at the next road. As soon as you can, like, now." Nico's voice rose, panicked.

_Yeah, definitely shaking._ "Do you need me to come get you? Is everything okay? I can get there in two minutes if-"

"I'm fine, Jason," Nico interrupted, with the faintest emphasis on the  _I'm._ "Don't question it, just do it. Now.  _Please."_ The line clicked dead. Jason looked around at his surroundings uneasily.

"Shit, Leo, I forgot, can you pull over?" Jason asked, leaning between the two front seats. "I've gotta run into that CVS up there, I'm out of toothpaste."

"You're really gonna make me pull over for your dental hygiene? You can get toothpaste on campus on your own time."

"Are you kidding me? Those prices are insane," Jason pushed, having no actual idea about the NRU bookstore's toothpaste prices. "Okay, I actually have to pick up floss because I've had a hunk of beef jerky in there for-"

"Stop, okay, okay, you win," Leo interrupted loudly, putting on his blinker as he moved into the turn lane. "No one needs to hear about your-"

And then Leo stopped, and they all stopped, because right then, a jet black Cadillac blew straight past them, no more than two inches left of their bumper and going no less than sixty miles per hour down the suburban road, and clipped Leo's rear view mirror clean off, tearing out a mangle of mostly red, white and green cords. It was gone as soon as it came; it thundered by like a dark horse, with neither headlight showing the faintest light. Leo pressed on the car horn like he was giving CPR.

"HOLY SHIT! What fucking driver comes blaring down the wrong side of the fucking road twenty fucking miles over the speed limit without any fucking headlights on?" he roared, half out the window and half inside the car out of shock.

Jason looked at Piper in horror, who looked equally terrified. "Ohmygod, Leo, are you okay?" she demanded frantically.

"I'm fine, just had the rear view mirror of the best car I ever had brutally torn from its body and lost forever," he lowered his voice slightly, giving a final blow of the car horn. "Alright, Jason, we're parking, you're getting your goddamn toothpaste, and we're all thanking our lucky stars for not turning us into one big  _kaboom."_

Leo pulled over to the curb and parked, and Jason moved to get out. He glanced back at Piper and almost wished he hadn't, because she was giving him a look that told him she knew something was questionable about the entire situation. And Jason agreed with her.

They both knew that if they hadn't gotten in that turn lane when they did, the other driver would have crashed head on into them.

They both knew that if they had crashed head on into that other car, Leo's old, crumpled truck couldn't have done shit to lessen the force of the impact.

And they both knew that with that kind of impact, they might not have survived.

Jason owed Nico a conversation.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaah, so that didn't end up being as Nico-centered as I was hoping. Meaning hardly at all. (Whoops, my bad!) Next chapter, however, will be from Nico's POV, so yay on that, I guess! Sorry it took a while to post, hope y'all enjoyed!! :D


	5. White Houses, Black Coffee and Colors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jason, Nico, Leo and Piper see "Casablanca", and Nico spills the beans on the peculiar incident the night before.

Nico felt something buried in his chest loosen, like a moth released from crushing hands, and exhaled in relief. He hadn't known, when he called, whether or not it would make a difference, but it apparently had -- enough of a difference to save Jason's life from whatever had threatened it in the first place. He had been incredibly hesitant to call (he _hated_ phone calls) but certainly couldn't regret it now-

_Shit. Right. He knows now,_ he remembered, stiffening again instantly as he drew a half-panicked breath.

He had felt his chest knotting earlier that day into what felt like a harrowing ulcer, drawing attention somewhere he hadn't noticed before. He had known, even before seeing him, that it was Jason; by the time Epics rolled around, his last class of the day, he knew what to expect when the other junior came into class, but what he saw sickened him nonetheless. It reminded him too much of...no, he couldn't afford to think about that now. In any case, he hadn't said anything, thinking Jason was a lost cause, but that night, right at the cusp of the increasingly tightening, smothering sensation, Nico had called on a whim.

He didn't regret it, of course, because Jason was a good person. He hadn't deserved whatever end was coming towards him. But Nico couldn't deny that he feared what was coming next. Jason had been in the car with Leo and Piper, after all -- Nico didn't really doubt Jason, but he had no idea what the other two would do. He already was known as the creepy-silent-dude-down-the-hall by one too many people, so he wasn't wild about having "necromancer" slapped onto that description.

Well, there was no helping it. Whatever nerve-racking discussion necessary would wait until tomorrow, and he would deal with it as best he could.

_...ah, yes, tomorrow. The movie, tomorrow. The one he expects me to meet him at without giving me a place or time,_ Nico thought grimly.  _Fantastic._

He considered backing out for a moment, but brushed the thought away annoyedly -- nothing had happened yet, and he refused to frustrate himself by writing off people who hadn't even done anything. He'd tried to ditch that habit after freshman year. No, he would suck it up and text Jason, and just hope to everything good and holy that the night's events wouldn't be brought up.

>>[10:04pm] Where and when exactly is this movie happening?

He waited anxiously. He did not have to wait long.

_> >[10:06pm] the theater at gateway, 2:20 showtime. get pumped, piper and leo have been arguing all night about it_

Nico had no idea what part of  _Casablanca_ warranted such a lengthy debate, but was relieved nonetheless that the answer had nothing else tagged onto it.

>>[10:06pm] Cool, thanks.

He didn't think that his reply left much room for a response, so he returned to his copy of the  _Aeneid_. The class was just now starting the seventh book, which was apparently the beginning of the War in Italy arc that spanned six books. So far, he'd enjoyed it.

> _When Thetis blush'd in purple not her own,_   
> _And from her face the breathing winds were blown,_   
> _A sudden silence sate upon the sea,_   
> _And sweeping oars, with struggling, urge their way,_   
> _The Trojan, from the main, beheld a wood,_   
> _Which thick with shades and-_

Another text interrupted him. He looked over at his phone, half irritated and half nervous, and was surprised that Hazel had been the one to text him.

_> >[10:08pm] Nico, did something happen tonight?_

Well, this was just dandy. He wasn't worried about having to explain anything to Hazel, at least -- he had told her a long time ago about his, er,  _idiosyncrasy_  -- but she obviously wasn't messaging him from out of the blue, which meant that she had found out from someone, which meant that word could already be spreading about the uncanny phenomenon. Nico bit his lip uncomfortably but remained composed. 

>>[10:09pm] Sort of. Did Jason say something?

He was curious about if Jason had gone to ask her about what had happened. He kind of expected (hoped?) that Jason would ask him about it, though.

_ >>[10:09pm] No, but piper told me that they almost were hit by a car but jason got them to pull over just in time. Did you know that something was going to happen? _

>>[10:09pm] Since when are you and Piper friends?

So this was just an intuition from Hazel.  _Well, looks like I'm not joining the freak circus yet,_ he thought, giving a small sigh.

_> >[10:10pm] We've been in the same dorm all year! Anyway, i covered for you, but since you called jason and he knows that you're the reason they didn't get hit, you should probably talk to him about it. You guys are friends anyway, right?_

Right, friends. Jason had called them that a couple of days ago, or rather, made Nico call them that.  _"...and you,"_ he had agreed hesitantly. But as alien as the word felt to him at this point, he didn't say things he didn't mean, and he was twenty years old, dammit, he was tired of the depressingly isolated lifestyle he'd created for himself in the last couple of years.

>>[10:12pm] Right. I'm planning on it.

>>[10:12pm] I'll see him, Piper and Leo tomorrow. I don't really want to explain it to more people than necessary, but I'll make sure to talk to him sometime then.

_ >>[10:12pm] Good for you! :) _

Nico smiled slightly to himself as he picked back up the  _Aeneid_ and resumed reading. 

> _ Which thick with shades and a brown horror stood:  
>  _ _ Betwixt the trees the Tiber took his course... _

* * *

Nico scanned out the window of his beat up Volvo, searching for any short-haired blond heads. He had purposely avoided thinking about it the night before, but he was not a fan of theaters, or really any huge, enclosed, crowded spaces. It had been his idea to make an old closet into the Blue Box, in fact, after taking one shift at the Labyrinth with the DJ equipment beside the dance floor. Not his cup of tea. He had agreed to come under the assumption that they were watching the old movie at someone's house or dorm room. Not so.  _No helping it,_ he thought, waiting for another five minutes or so until he finally spotted Jason pacing in front of the theater, and got out to approach him briskly.

"Hey, you made it!" Jason turned and beamed at him. That was another thing -- Nico had never been sure why Jason always seemed so happy to see him. Then again, he seemed like a happy guy in general.

"Somehow," Nico shrugged, faintly smiling as his hands turned out. "I take it your friends aren't here yet?"

"Yeah, Leo's always a couple minutes late. He texted me a few minutes ago and told me to go on and get snacks while they get here. Do you already have a ticket?"

"No. Sorry, I probably should have-"

"No no, that's fine, I need one too," Jason cut him off, still with that easygoing smile. "We should probably go ahead and grab those. Do you have a ten?"

"Yeah," he said, pulling a wad out of his back pocket and beginning to sift through until Jason plucked it out of his hands, picked out a ten and handed the remaining bills back to him.

"Nice. I'll be back," he asserted, turning towards the counter.

"They're twelve dollars, you know," Nico called after him. Jason raised a hand nonchalantly.

"Don't worry about it," he replied without turning back. Nico watched him curiously for a moment before twiddling with his phone until he came back, sporting four tickets. He presented one to Nico, flipping it gracefully ( _really?_ Was Nico _really_  making mental puns?) towards him and pocketed the others. Nico took it, a smirk twinging from the corner of his mouth.

"Thanks. You said they sent you for food...?"

"Oh, right," Jason perked up, "almost forgot. Nice save. Let's go ahead inside."

"Don't you have their tickets?" Nico pointed out. "Won't they need those to get inside?"

"Nah, they don't take your tickets 'til you're past the concessions. We're fine."

They went inside and stared at the prices posted above the counter for a while. After a long silence, Nico glanced over at Jason, and noticed him scowling for the first time. Eventually he looked back over and grinned sheepishly, though it seemed a little strained.

"The prices here are ridiculous," he explained, and resumed glaring at the menu.

"You mean you didn't bring anything?" Nico lowered his voice, scoffing quietly.

"You're not supposed to."

"Well, you're not supposed to jaywalk, either."

"Exactly. Leo almost crashed into someone a couple weeks ago. It's stupid, risking your life for no good reason."

"Jason, no one's risking lives here," Nico muttered. Jason chuckled.

"Fair point. Alright, what did  _you_ bring?"

"Just a couple of Cokes. I forewent the crappy popcorn."  _Really, Nico? Did you_ really _just use the past tense of "forego"?_ he chastised himself mentally, before wondering why he cared in the first place. He only looked back at Jason once the other had started ordering one of the ridiculously enormous buckets of popcorn, along with a "medium" Diet Pepsi for Leo and Piper to split.

Jason had just begun remarking the time when Nico spotted two people coming in through the irritatingly heavy glass doors. The pretty, dark tanned girl was obviously Piper, because, just as he had been anticipating uncomfortably, the other guy was his freshman year roommate, Leo Valdez. He didn't exactly dislike Leo, but they had shared one too many awkward encounters within that incredibly awkward semester.  _What I would give for him to not recognize me._

Alas, it was too much to hope for, Nico could see within one uncomfortable instance of eye contact. At least Leo was quickly occupied by Jason and Piper, as the trio started chatting excitedly about the movie.  _The one starting in about...four minutes,_ he noted. He was beginning to feel like a fourth wheel by the time that Jason cut into the increasingly heated back-and-forth between the other two.

"Could we hold the Bogart-Bergman war until  _after_ the movie? I can't even remember if I've seen it or not," Jason interrupted mildly. Something crossed his face, like a sudden thought, and he turned back to Nico, who felt two other pairs of eyes fix on him as well. "Right, have you guys met Nico yet?"

"I think we were in one of the big lectures together freshman year, but we haven't been properly introduced. I'm Piper McLean," the girl introduced herself.

"Nice to meet you, I'm Nico," he glanced up, extending a hand, and was relieved that she took it warmly, although he wondered if it was a bit old-fashioned. "Good to see you, Leo," he acknowledged, forcing himself to look over to the other guy and gave a brief nod. Leo gave a silent wave in reply, not seeming particularly enthusiastic, but hey, it could have gone worse, Nico reasoned.

"Have you seen  _Casablanca_ before, Nico?" Piper prompted as Jason fumbled with his pockets to find their tickets.

"A while back, probably about ten years ago," Nico replied, trying to formulate something or other to follow up with. "You all seem pretty familiar with it."

"Leo and I had to watch it earlier this year for our American Cinema class," she explained, leering pointedly at Leo. " _Some_ people can't seem to get it in their heads that Ingrid Bergman's acting was clearly the highlight of-"

"Humphrey Bogart is an  _icon_ , your  _grandparents_ know who Bogart is-"

"Okay already, we get it," Jason butted in good-naturedly, "or at least we would, if you'd let us get into the damn theater!"

"Yeah, yeah," Piper waved him off. "Go on, then, but you  _both_ better have your votes cast by the time we set foot outside." Nico found himself slightly taken aback; Piper hadn't seemed particularly threatening, but her intonations...well, they spoke for themselves.

The movie was refreshing, though Nico found himself preferring more modern films. It was an almost pleasant flush of nostalgia from his youth, back when his mother and sister were alive and his father wasn't away for work all the time (he could practically title his father's life "The Perpetual Business Trip") and they had watched old classics because they were his mother's favorites. Six or seven years ago, he probably would have had to walk out of the theater, but Nico had aged enough that the wounds weren't raw anymore, and so even though when Rick said, _"Where I'm going, you can't follow,"_ his grip on the chair tightened ever so slightly, Nico was okay.

What Nico  _wasn't_ okay with was Jason shoving the half-barrel of popcorn into his lap halfway through  _every_ significant piece of dialogue,  _without fail._ Halfway through, he began to wonder if Jason was being friendly or using him as a jumbo cup-holder. Each time, he just sighed and passed it onto Leo, who held onto it for a few minutes before passing it to Piper, who whispered angrily at Leo for taking so much before taking a handful and shoving it back towards Nico again, who would immediately hand the cesspool of grease back to Jason. The worst part was anticipating when it would get thrust at him next. He hated popcorn, but opted not to say anything about it.  _He has good intentions?_ he reminded himself grudgingly as it faithfully dropped into his lap again halfway through Rick's final  _"Here's looking at you, kid."_ _  
_

"So, what'd you think?" Piper turned around towards him and Jason with a slightly devilish grin.

"It was great, although a little melodramatic. Wait, you mean about the argument you were having earlier?" Jason blinked. "...they were both good. I don't know, I can't really compare them, they were different characters," he added almost defensively as Piper rounded on him.

"Cop out, that's not an answer. Nico?" she turned expectantly.

"Sorry, Leo, but I'm with Piper on this one. Bogart showed Rick's conflict well, but I'd say Bergman brought more complexity to her character," he explained, quietly but with conviction.

_"Ha,"_ Piper turned back to Leo, keeping her gloating to one syllable but to one jeering, cocky, degrading syllable. Nico was perpetually impressed by her...expressiveness? It was like she made hand gestures with her voice.

"So, anyway," Leo coughed, bearing his remaining scraps of dignity, "Piper and I talked about grabbing Pizza Hut on the way back. Are you guys game?"

_"Loser buys,"_ Piper preened.

_Lunch at four? Really?_ Nico paused, uncertain, then opened his mouth to reply in the affirmative, but Jason cut him off before he got a word in. "Sorry, but Nico and I were already planning on the deli."  _Oh shit oh shit, shitshitshitshit, here we go,_ he thought, pulse speeding up as he nodded slightly, forcing his expression to remain as relaxed as he could manage. 

Nico had no idea what "the deli" was, but Leo's expression turned to exaggerated disgust. "Fine, treat yourselves to goat liver or whatever the hell they're selling now. You're all crazy."

"They were selling pickled pig feet, Leo," Piper corrected, "which are actually pretty universally-"

"Oh, right, pig's feet. Worlds better. You'd just better be there for Dragonology tomorrow night, got it? I have a pizza to win back," Leo declared, which Piper only smirked at cockily.

"Never heard of it, but sure," Nico agreed. It suddenly occurred to him,  _Were they talking to me? God, I hope that wasn't just to Jason..._

They both seemed unfazed, whatever the case, so he returned to stressing about the larger issue at hand. Jason offered some kind of enthusiastic agreement, but Nico was too preoccupied to focus back in on the conversation until he noticed Leo and Piper moving to leave, and snapped back quickly enough to throw a hand up and offer a half smile. He looked up at Jason, who still looked upbeat as per usual as he turned back to Nico, but had some other expression creeping out of his features as well. Discomfort? Fear? Disgust? Nico didn't want to know.

"I, um, want to explain last night," he swallowed, automatically averting his eyes but forcing himself to look back up. Whatever had been in Jason's expression seemed to loosen as he nodded, and Nico let out a breath he didn't know he had been holding.

"Do you actually want lunch? That was a cover, I just knew we'd lose Leo with Cy's Deli and didn't think you'd want to, I dunno, spill your guts with him."

"Yeah, thanks. I'm not that hungry," he fidgeted.  _Composure, Nico. You look like a squirrel that natural selection's about to take out via car._   _  
_

Jason nodded again. "Do you mind if we drive to Panera? I could use a sandwich."

"You didn't eat beforehand?"

"Well, yeah, but I...I kinda have a bread craving," he grinned sheepishly, doing that thing, Nico had noticed, where he rubbed right below the nape of his neck. Not that Nico could say anything against gestures.

"Bread?" Nico's voice cracked into short laughter.  _"Really?"_ It subsided fairly quickly, but faded into a more relaxed smile. Jason had that effect on people, Nico had noticed, making them naturally more comfortable. "Sure. Your car or mine?" _  
_

"I'll drive," Jason volunteered.

The drive to Panera was uneventful and mostly quiet. There was the occasional attempt at small-talk, but the anticipation weighed heavily, like the air had thickened between them. Nico could only hope that the heaviness wasn't permanent. He was taking an unusual chance on Jason, and he couldn't afford to think about it backfiring.

"Do you want anything?" Jason asked after parking outside the restaurant.

"I'm fine," Nico declined.

"Are you sure? Did you already have lunch?"

_No, but I don't think I could keep anything down right now._ "It's fine, Jason, I'm not hungry," he emphasized.

"You can't run on empty, Nico. Come on, nothing?"

Nico glanced back at Jason, almost appreciating his insistence. "...well, I wouldn't mind coffee," he relented. Jason looked pointedly at Nico's hands, and when Nico looked down he noticed that they were half-trembling. Leave it to his gesticulating hands to betray him. He felt himself blush slightly, but added, "They just do that when...caffeine won't make it worse."

"You got it. Coffee." Jason offered a small but glowing smile as he shut the door behind him.

Nico rested his head on his knuckles, overwhelmed. He normally slept like a log, but had known it was a lost cause last night, eventually finishing the  _Aeneid_ after realizing that his thoughts were going nowhere. He still had no idea how to approach this... _I guess I'll give it to him straight and hope that'll be enough._

It was a good ten minutes before Jason came back holding two drinks in one hand (wow, his hands were big) and a paper take-out bag in the other. After watching him shuffle the food around awkwardly and almost drop one of the drinks, Nico reached over and opened the door for him.

"Ah, thanks," he managed, handing Nico his coffee and sinking into his seat as he shut the door. "Sorry that took so long, they forgot that it was to go."

"No, it's fine. Thanks for the coffee," he mumbled, sipping it and finding it kind of bitter but not awful. The cup was searing under his painfully tight grip, and Jason seemed to notice, his expression shifting slightly.

"You don't have to tell me anything you don't want to, Nico," he tried, but Nico shook his head.

"Thanks, but I kind of do." He breathed in deeply, steeling himself. There were no outs, and he didn't want any.

And then he began.

"For as far back as I can remember, I've seen things differently from how other people have described them to me. I'm not sure exactly what the difference is, but I think I see another kind of layer of color over everything. They're completely separate -- like if you asked me to describe the color of the Panera sign," he motioned outside, "it's obviously dark green and white, and it looks that way to me, except simultaneously there's a kind of scarlet...haze, I guess, moving around the logo's face. Does that make any sense?" he glanced back, biting his lip anxiously.

"Yeah, I think so," Jason nodded earnestly.

"So there's some of this haze-color over basically everything. Pets and books normally have a lot around them. Other people have the most concentrated color, by far," he explained. "I looked into it a while ago, and I guess you could call them 'auras' for the sake of simplicity. Most of the time people are one main color with a lot of others mixed in."

"Did you-"

"I saw a couple of guides for what they 'mean', if that's what you're asking," Nico smiled slightly, wryly. "It was all bull, from what I saw, for the overall colors, anyway. Most people are pretty neutral. Sometimes other colors kind of streak through, though, and they're pretty spot on with those. Was that your question?"

"Uh, you got it." Jason seemed a little stunned, maybe, but not horribly weirded out, as far as Nico could tell.

"You obviously know Hazel, but you probably don't know about my other sister Bianca," he continued, mentally crossing his fingers to get through the second, infinitely harder part of his explanation. "Our mother died when I was pretty young, and after that our father had to leave for business more and more often, so Bianca basically raised me from that point. We stayed in Dad's house and he paid for everything we needed, of course, he just wasn't really there. Bianca got a job at some factory to make a little extra money, just so we could go to the movies, get fast food, stuff like that.

"So one day, I was about twelve or something, I woke up and had this, um, tugging, you know, and I didn't know what it was or anything. And when I saw her, she- her colors, her aura was smaller, and it looked almost like it was dusting off of her-" There it was, his voice broke off like it was bound to, and he stopped to recollect himself. Jason started to reach out a hand but stopped, hesitating. "It's fine," Nico mumbled, almost inaudible, and Jason instantly and silently rested a hand on his forearm.

He started again after a few moments. "When I came back from school, there was one police officer outside the house. He said she was trying to fix some machine and the wrong wires ended up touching. We had a closed casket funeral because her body was so charred. The worst part was that after a week I couldn't even remember what color she was. Something felt like it'd been blown out, that I hadn't noticed until it was just, you know, gone...so that was when I realized that I wasn't just seeing auras, I was kind of tied to them, of people who were important to me." He flushed slightly deeper this time, unsure if Jason realized the implications of that statement. Hell if  _Nico_ understood the implications of that statement. "So anyhow, I generally ignore auras now because they just make things more complicated," he sighed, "except yesterday I felt the tugging again, and when I saw you in class you were just  _disintegrating_ , or your aura was, anyway, and I didn't think I could do anything about it. But it just kept getting worse, and right when it felt like it was going to disappear, I was like, 'Fuck it, even if it doesn't work it's worth a shot,' and so I called and tried to change whatever you were doing."

"And it worked," Jason murmured, without looking back at him, because he knew the horrible "and".

"And it might have worked eight years ago," he finished, closing his eyes because  _oh god that hurt,_ but it was all said, which was more than he could say for twenty years of living. He felt the hand on his forearm tighten ever so slightly, and realized that at some point his half-trembling had turned into shaking, though thankfully only really in his arms. They sat in silence for a minute or so, and eventually the burning at the back of his throat quelled, and he let out a sigh that stilled his entire body.

"How about that coffee?" Jason finally broke the silence with a half-grin. Nico offered a tired smile in return, and grabbed his now lukewarm drink to click against Jason's own Coke. Nico didn't feel the need to ask if he believed him.

"Seriously, though, I'd be terrified to tell someone my life story. So, uh...thanks, Nico."

"...tell me," Nico glanced at Jason.

"Tell you what?"

"Your 'life story,'" he replied, a challenge, though neither defiant nor suspicious. "How much do you trust me?"

Jason studied him for a moment. "It's really not that interesting, compared-"

"I'm interested."

A slow smile melted from Jason's brief expression of surprise. "Okay. I guess I'll start with my family, then. As far back as I can remember, my sister and I were always known as the bastard children of Gideon Jupiter, past governor of New York and current Secretary of Defense."

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew, I think that's the longest chapter thus far (and possibly out of the entire work -- then again, I have no idea! Heheh...) Nico's "ability" is partially based on the actual condition synesthesia, and partially on the behavior of Philip Pullman's Dust in his trilogy "His Dark Materials" (which just so happens to contain my all time favorite books). Hope y'all liked, feel free to leave comments/questions below, and I hope to update soon! :D


	6. Smudging

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jason returns the favor with a couple blurbs about his own life.

"Gideon Jupiter," Nico repeated.

"I know, hard to believe, right?"

"I never said that."

"It's hard for  _me_ to believe sometimes, and I grew up with it breathing down my neck," Jason replied, the side of his mouth twitching. "I don't really remember them, though. My mom and dad. We weren't exactly planned -- pretty miraculous we're both from the same woman, actually. Not that I know anything about my dad's sex life or anything," he added, unable to bite down a smirk. "Anyway, my stepmom talked her into sending me to boarding school when I was really young, to avoid the publicity and stuff, so I don't remember much about life before then.

"The head of boarding, Lupa, was probably the best thing that ever happened to me. She made us hit the ground running as soon as we got there, and was all about manual labor, pull your own weight, all that stuff. She didn't have time for weak kids, so they all dropped out. But she always made sure that we figured out what we wanted and then went out and got it." His eyes gleamed, as Nico noticed a deep, royal purple seep into Jason's powder-blue aura, working its way upwards and fading before it reached the top. Pride.

"Frank and your sister Hazel all entered in high school. I guess I kinda took them under my wing, they ended up in my friend group and we ended up pretty close by the time I graduated. Not sure if you know her, but Reyna Avila Ramírez-Arellano and I were best friends then, too. I didn't see my sister Thalia until about eight years ago -- she ended up going to an all girls college that kept her pretty busy, but we see more of each other now that she's graduated. She was the one to tell me that our mom died in a drunk driving accident." Jason paused for a moment, considering. "Yeah, that's pretty much the lowdown. Sorry, I'm kinda new to the whole spur-of-the-moment-autobiography business," he pointed out with an easy smile.

"Have you declared your major?"

"Oh, yeah, Philosophy."

"Explains why you have Plato's  _Republic_ on the floor of your car. Why Philosophy?" Nico raised his brows. Sure, Jason seemed smart and even pretty thoughtful, but not horribly introspective.

"Well, I want to go to law school," Jason explained, "become a lawyer, and hopefully a judge. Someday."

"You know, I've never met someone who wanted to be a judge. Is there a reason?" Nico asked, having noticed an ominous bubbling in Jason's aura, like a bottled passion.

Jason's smile seemed to fade a little wistfully. "Kinda. Yes. I guess it's mostly that all my life, I've seen so much injustice, like, everywhere, and it's like everyone just kinda forgets about it after it's over or too late. And I've watched it happen, and there's nothing I wouldn't give to go back and be able to  _do_  something about it. There are just all these people who do so much  _shit_  their entire lives...I just wish that people got back exactly what they handed out their entire lives," he growled. His aura was a mess, dyed dark blue and grey and the black of shadows. "Just being a lawyer would help, I guess. But what better way to defend the justice of the people than to preside over the rulings themselves, and fairly sentence the guilty parties?"

"I see, that's...admirable," Nico murmured. "Judges only get to judge the bad stuff, though, you know, so it just sounds like dealing with varying degrees of shit to me," he ventured. "If it were me, I'd probably get pretty jaded."

"What, more than you are now?" Jason teased. Nico glanced away with a short laugh, a little stung. "Sorry, I didn't mean it like that," he added with a slight grimace, aura streaking dark green.

"No, I know, it's fine," Nico waved him off. "I think it's been getting less true since this year started, you know. Two years are kind of hard to undo, though."  _I kind of wish I'd known you back then,_  he bit back. "What was your high school like?"

"Small. We had a graduating class of, I guess thirty-some students? Reyna and I were looked up to a lot because we'd both been boarding for a long time. We got elected class presidents sophomore, junior and senior year." He seemed flustered as streaks of lavender flickered amongst darker purple. "My grades could have been better. How was yours?"

"Well," Nico hunched slightly, studying his tensing hands, "I was mostly avoided there, too. The whole creepy-death-guy thing didn't start here."

"The whole 'creepy-death-guy' thing?"

"Yeah," Nico gritted his teeth, "well, there were a couple things going around about me. The big one was that everything I touched died. I think that one came from this one guy whose dog died pretty soon after I ran into it. It was pretty close to death and it was twitching all over when I saw it, you know, so I assumed it had rabies and was trying to keep it away from me."

"Was its mouth foaming?"

"That only happens in the late stages. When the throat and mouth muscles become paralyzed," he explained. "So I ended up doing a lot of reading, even though I'm sort of dyslexic, you know, so at least I got pretty good at that. I ended up relearning a lot of Italian, too."

"Relearning?"

"I'm half Italian," he elaborated, the corner of his mouth curling into a smirk. "You really couldn't tell?"

"I mean, now that you mention it," Jason stared. "I dunno, you don't- it just didn't occur to me? I guess that explains the hands."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, have you ever seen yourself talk?" he grinned.

"God, don't even go there," Nico rolled his eyes.

"I bet the girls were  _all over_  it," he went on, raising his eyebrows slyly. "How about it? Were they crazy about the 'dark and mysterious' persona you've got going on?"

Nico felt himself go crimson.  _Oh shit, not_ this _right now._ "How about  _no._  Too busy chasing after the blond jocks. I bet  _you_  were swamped with them."

Jason shrugged, streaking lavender again and blushing slightly as he rubbed the back of his neck. "I dunno. I heard rumors that there were a few who were interested, I guess. Reyna and I might have dated if we'd had more time, but we didn't really keep in touch when we started college, so it never happened." He pursed his lips thoughtfully, rosy pinks slowly twisting around him. "I dated Piper freshman and sophomore year here, and that was great. We broke it off at the end of last year, though. We didn't want it to get too serious."

"It's nice that you're still friends," Nico mumbled, and Jason nodded.

"Yeah, it's pretty sweet. I kinda wish it had started out as more of a friendship, though. It felt like we both plunged in without really knowing each other and it just grew from there." He blinked at Nico, with what seemed like a question tipping his tongue.

 _Nope, don't even think about it. I know where this is going,_ Nico thought darkly. Considering the direction of their conversation, he didn't particularly want to risk whatever Jason was about to ask.

"Di-"

"Can you check the time?" he asked quickly. Jason pulled out his phone and blinked incredulously.

"Shit, it's already six, I'm supposed to be meeting up with Reyna right now," he grimaced, putting the car into reverse. "Sorry, I kinda lost track of time."

"No problem," Nico shrugged, "I'm not the late one."

There was a short silence as they drove back towards the theater's parking lot. Nico didn't even know if it was awkward or amiable at this point. Jason broke it after a minute or so.

"Hey, you alright?"

"Hmm? Yeah," Nico said, before realizing in his gut that Jason wasn't really talking about how he was right then. "Well, getting there. In general."

"I getcha. After I started boarding, Thalia was the only family that I caught back up with, so living away from her was pretty rough sometimes...I can't imagine what it would be like, actually losing her."

"Well, it sucked. It felt unbearable some days. There was a pretty long time when it felt like it wasn't going to get better, until I just realized I wasn't thinking about it as much. It doesn't bother me as much now -- you know, the thing is, you just run out of room in your life after a while. And then you realize you're just holding on because you're too afraid of what happens when you forget to hold on anymore."

Jason gave a deep, stretching sigh in reply, a soft sound through his nose that drew Nico's attention. His aura was blurred up with grey, in a way that looked less like stormheads in a light sky and more like smudges left by a dirty eraser. He was momentarily confused until he looked up at Jason's eyes, which were steadily trained on the road but visibly slick.

 _Maybe it's about his sister?_ Nico thought confusedly, opting to remain in silence as the grey smudges paled and slowly melted back into Jason's aura. The only sound to interrupt was the rhythmic  _clickclickclickclick_ of the blinker as they turned back into the parking lot.

Jason pulled over alongside the curb of the theater and parked, then turned his entire body around in his seat towards Nico, staring with unusual intensity. "Listen, Nico, I- I can't thank you enough, for, uh..." he trailed off, the air around him muddied brown as he quickly became overwhelmed. Nico could see why, with an impressive array of lilac-grey-pink-chartreuse-magenta battering around him, like the field of a war with too many sides.

Nico offered a tight but broad smile, only a little forced, but genuine, like an unstretched muscle. "I'm glad that someone else knows. It's just been me and Hazel for so long."

Jason nodded again, and Nico bit the corner of his lip as he felt Jason sort of... _swelling,_  beside him. He thought he remembered the sensation from Hazel, and puzzled over it for a moment before realizing, almost startled, that Jason was overwhelmed with feeling sad for him -- forget auras, he could see it plainly on his face.

Years ago, he would have been irritated or even angry with him for it. He always had resented the pity of others. Thankfully, however, he had matured enough to see the difference between pity and empathy, and had tried to stop blaming people in general for their good intentions. Besides, it was Jason, not some random stranger judging him on his tragedies. _  
_

And so, swallowing back his discomfort with physical contact, he surprised himself a little as he unbuckled himself, leaned across the cupholders and engulfed an equally surprised Jason in a hug he knew that the other needed. Go figure, Nico spilling his guts and the other person needing a hug afterwards. It was exactly as uncomfortable as he had anticipated -- very -- to begin with, but gradually let himself loosen into the other. _God, he's like a furnace,_ he noticed, drawing back immediately after making the observation. In any case, it had seemed to help, as the chaos in the other's aura cleared up aside from some friendly corals and tolerable fuchsias. He paused, then opened the car door a little uncertainly.

"I think Dragonology's happening at five tomorrow, Piper's room. You're in Leo's dorm, right?" Jason asked.  _Shit, he probably knows we were roommates, then._ "If you're up for it, we'll meet you outside at four fifty?"

"Yeah, that'd be great," Nico agreed with a flush of relief, scrambling out of the car. "Thanks, Jason."

"You got it," Jason grinned, waiting for Nico to shut the door before he pulled away. Nico stood on the throbbing asphalt for a moment, watching as Jason's brick red sedan disappeared. Then he got in his car and drove.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew, and there's that! Hope y'all enjoyed! I can't promise anything about the pacing of the next few chapters, but I will say that I have no intention of stalling the progression of this sucker, so hopefully the fluff will only get fluffier in the future! As always, kudos and comments are infinitely appreciated! ^w^


	7. Heavy Basslines and Heavier Movies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jason comes to a couple conclusions. Jason's face turns into a tomato.

Jason was getting pummeled.

Piper had been dominating the game board, already having collected all of the three figurines she needed to win. Jason and Leo had not a one. In his defense, Jason had only played Dragonology once, back in freshman year, while Piper and Leo had been playing with Frank since last year. 

Except that he couldn't use inexperience as an excuse, with first time player Nico securely tailing Piper in second place. He hadn't spoken for the first half of the game, and Jason had wondered if he actually understood the rules, considering he hadn't made a single aggressive move. Then, without warning, Nico played almost all of the cards in his hand, stealing one of Piper's dragons, reshuffling all of their cards into the deck, and then, just as Jason had been redealt three Cockatrice cards by coincidence, deviously plucking his last hopes of winning out of his hand. Piper had thrown together enough cards to regain a second dragon within two turns, however, and after stealing Leo's Wyvern had entered the last stretch of the game. She had been stuck two spaces away from winning for...five turns, now.

 _"_ _Dammit,"_ Leo growled after rolling a three. "Screw threes. I've gotten this roll, like, three friggin times. I don't even get a card, this is bullshit!"

"I guess it wasn't meant to be," Piper shrugged, smiling sweetly. "Go, Nico."

"Okay, I'm taking a train to the Marsupial," he declared, laying out a  _Locomotive_ card, followed by three cards with vaguely interesting facts about the Marsupial Dragon. " _And_ that's two. Jason?"

"Wish me luck," he said dryly, taking the dice from the board and rolling a six. While he still hadn't made it to the Frost Dragon, he was able to draw an extra card from the stack of "Bit of Knowledge" cards. Not that it helped much.

"Come on, two. Two, two," Piper muttered, rolling the die. "Hmm, Leo, will you read that for me?"

"...I can't  _believe_ it," Leo hissed in reply.

"What's that?"

"It's a three. Or a five. Hell, it's a twenty."

"Hmm, you're sounding pretty vague there, Leo. Jason, wanna help him out?"

Jason peered over at the die and chuckled. "Okay, Piper wins."

"Just wanted to make sure. Which means," she extended a hand expectantly. Leo shuffled the contents of his pockets grudgingly, forking over another ten dollars with a scathing look.

"You know what? This is on Nico. I was one roll from getting the Cockatrice before that reshuffle. One roll!" he bemoaned.

"Cry me a river, you would have run around it for the rest of the game," Nico rolled his eyes, two fingers drawing circles midair. "You  _do_ realize you could have just used a ticket to get there?"

"Well, yeah, but I was  _so close._ "

"But no cigar. Either time."

"Hey, enough with the salt on my raw, bleeding wounds!" Leo exclaimed, grabbing the popcorn bowl from the ground. "Alright, well, I'm going to nurse my battle scars and refill this sucker," he announced, swinging open the door to Piper's dorm and stepping out boldly. There was an immediate squeal from somewhere in the hall as a dripping figure dove for the safety of her room.

"Put on some clothes, Callie!" Piper yelled. "You'd think these girls never heard of a co-ed dorm...so what now? It's only seven," she pointed out.

"Do you all have work left?" Nico asked.

"Nope, finished it all this afternoon," Jason replied.

"Same here, and you  _know_ Leo wouldn't care if he had a twenty page essay due tomorrow. I vote-"

 _"Does anyone know where the popcorn is?"_ Leo's distant shout echoed through the hall to their open door.

"To the left of the sink!" Jason yelled. There was a momentary silence.

 _"There's nothing but sponges to the left of the sink!"_ Leo retorted. Jason scowled as he thrust himself to his feet, wordlessly pacing down the hall into the small, orange-stained kitchen. It smelled like ramen seasoning.

"Leo.  _In the cabinet,_ " Jason sighed, reaching into the cabinet left of the sink and pulling out a box of Orville popcorn with "DORM" scrawled on the top flap in Sharpie. He handed a packet to Leo and replaced the box on the shelf.

"So...you and Nico seem friendly," he noted, trying to sound casual. Leo looked up after he finished starting the microwave.

"Yeah, I guess so. We kinda accidentally started talking last night after he came back from...wherever you guys were. He's way less of an asshole than he was freshman year," Leo shrugged. "He's actually kinda cool, in a super awkward way."

Jason laughed. "Maybe a little awkward..." A new thought suddenly occurred to him, and his gaudy expression shifted to a sly smile. "He lent you something, didn't he?"

"What? Of course not, I was just- well, I mean, yeah- we were just talking about it and he brought it up!" Leo defended.

"Brought up what?"

"... _The Amazing Spider-Man._ He asked if I'd read the variant edition of the last issue. I told him the copies were too rare for me to afford. Then he pulls out this huge suitcase from his closet and opens it and it's full of comic books, ordered by issue number and everything, and he just hands me this four hundred dollar edition and just tells me not to get anything on it, like it's nothing. Never thought I'd actually get to read it," Leo muttered, half to himself. He looked back up at Jason intently. "What, did he tell you?"

"Huh? Oh, no, I just had a hunch. He lent a graphic novel, I think, the second time I talked to him?" Jason recalled. "Which I guess wasn't that long ago."

"Didn't you guys know each other before this year?"

Jason pondered for a moment. "...not really. We were in the same Bio seminar, but I don't remember any actual interactions with him, really." He frowned with a vague feeling of nostalgia. _I kind of have the feeling that something bad happened to him that year, though._

"I can't believe we roomed for an entire semester and I didn't even know he likes comics," Leo shook his head. He looked like he was about to say something else, but the microwave started beeping, and he readily returned to his main task.

"Bowl's over here," Jason tapped the counter, amused. "Yeah, there are a lot of people I wish I'd gotten to know earlier, like Percy and Annabeth. I couldn't have handled Percy freshman year, though," he snorted.

"Sometimes I can barely handle him  _now._ He's, like, larger than life, in the intimidating way." Leo charged the doorway, pausing to look back over his shoulder. "You coming?"

"Huh? Yeah," Jason blinked, high-tailing it after him.

When they entered Piper's room, there was already an awkward silence. Nico's ears were bright red, and he was pointedly avoiding looking at anyone, although he didn't look vexed so much as embarrassed. Jason could have believed that the silence had lasted since he left, had Piper not been smiling deviously to herself.

He was considering asking about it when Leo burst in. "Is anyone up for round two?" he challenged.

"Nope. What, are you trying to break even? You _know_ you'll only triple your debt," Jason gestured to Piper.  _And there's no way I'd win, either, heheh._

"And as much as I'd like to not have to buy my own pizza for the next month, I cannot, in good conscience, support my best friend's gambling habits," Piper added smugly. 

"Oh, I see, scared to take me on? No sweat, Beauty Queen. Revenge is a dish best served cold," he taunted. "Alright, so what now?"

"Well, there's Smash Bros, but I think the dorm TV's taken," Piper said with a hint of irritation; every time Jason had come over for the past two years, "Project Runway" or the like had gathered a crowd in the common room from eight at night to around eleven, and he knew Piper wanted nothing to do with it. "We could watch a movie on my laptop. Which one are you reading about, Nico?"

"Oh?" Nico snapped back to attention. "Um,  _Seven Pounds._ I've never seen it, but it's got Will Smith?"

"You've never seen  _Seven Pounds?"_ Leo repeated.

"No. Why, is it good?"

" _So_ underappreciated," Piper muttered mutinously.

"It's pretty depressing, so not one of my favorites, but it was pretty good," Jason conceded. "Well, I think, at least. I saw it when I was, probably, nine or ten?"

"What is it with you two, not having seen anything in the past decade of your lives? I'm afraid you're going to start quoting  _Sharknado_ next," Piper shook her head. "Well, let's educate and re-educate you guys."

* * *

About three-quarters of their way into the movie, Jason had determined two things: first, that Will Smith -- or rather, Ben Thomas -- was a pretty neat guy, even if he handed out body parts to people he barely knew. Good thing he had spare organs. And second, that he was not a particular fan of dramas. Sure, he had seen plenty of good tear jerkers, but he concluded that they served only to occupy time and to contribute unnecessary angst to his life, which he, often times, considered angsty enough as it was.

Jason pushed the popcorn bowl, which had about two handfuls left in it, towards Nico. There was no response, so he prodded the other lightly with it. Still no response.

 _"Hey,"_ Jason whispered, pushing it at him again,  _"popcorn."_

Nico finally turned to look at Jason, exhaling shortly through his nose as he took the bowl, attention returning to the movie almost instantly. _  
_

 _He sure doesn't eat much,_ Jason noticed.  _Compared to us, anyway...well, I guess_ that _comparison doesn't say much_ _._ He looked back to the onscreen telemarketer, who was fielding Thomas's call with admirable patience.

His attention was diverted again a few minutes later by what sounded like the satisfying destruction of an essay's rough draft, followed by a clattering like marbles onto glass. He glanced over and saw that Nico had poured an impressively sized bag of M&Ms into the popcorn bowl, rolling on top of a layer of grease-coated uncracked kernels. A couple of moments later, he felt the cold of the hard plastic press against his leg, and accepted the bowl with a hastily whispered  _"Thanks!"_

About thirty minutes later, Piper was audibly weeping in tiny, rare gasps scattered unpredictably. Leo's head jerked around to survey all of his fellow watchers, eyes crinkling up as he bit back laughing at the first-time watchers' expressions of utter shock.

Which was a pretty accurate descriptor for Jason's entire mental state at the time -- utter shock. After following this guy Thomas's entire story, assuming he's devoting the rest of his life to good deeds, all as penitence for one major screw-up (which is actually still true, come to think of it) he's just,  _bam,_ gone. Jason probably should have seen it coming, with all the foreshadowing with the jellyfish and everything, but he'd honestly had no idea, and as punishment for his unpreparedness, he was seeing the world through a bleary, wet screen at that point.

Curious about the other's reaction, especially since he hadn't heard anything from him yet, Jason looked over at Nico, and found him staring down the monitor. He was as absolutely silent as he had seemed, and wore a subtle look of devastation; though the room's lights were out, the dorm lights gleamed on his eyes, which were almost comically welling up with big glass beads of tears.

Jason was unsure if the other was reacting to the mood from the movie itself or from something else, so he gave him a light nudge. Nico whipped his head around and gave Jason a confused look, which Jason couldn't help grinning at.

 _"God, you jerk,"_ Nico whispered, half laughing in a gaspy way as he rubbed vigorously at his eyes. Jason snickered quietly through his grin before noticing that his face was warmer than usual. He didn't feel sick...was he blushing? Why was he blushing? 

He looked back to the letters unfolding on-screen, the melancholy washing over him all over again as Emily's heart breaks over the words. He watched up until she sees Ezra in the park before glancing back at Nico. He looked mostly composed (much less watery, for sure) but depressingly world-weary, watching with dull, tired eyes. Well, nah, Nico just seemed tired in general, judging from those bags under his eyes, which were dark as bruises, just like his surprisingly long eyelashes and  _stop, Jason. What are you doing, Jason._

And then it suddenly occurred to Jason that this had happened before, at the beginning of freshman year. With Piper. A deep flush crept over his entire face as he felt his heart thudding a little faster.

_I think I...might...like...Nico?_

He glanced back over from the movie as though to check, but Nico was already looking at him, inclining his head slightly. Jason flashed a quick smile before instantly turning back to the movie, watching out of the corner of his eye as Nico looked back to the grainy movie on the computer, his expression slightly confused.

 _Yep. Definitely._ He didn't have much else to think about it yet; the matter of what to do with this newfound information would be figured out later.

"Well, forget about her heart, mine's failing," Leo muttered as the credits rolled. "Can't believe I forgot how much this thing sucks."

"If by 'sucks,' you mean 'evokes emotion,'" Piper chuckled, face surprisingly neither red nor puffy. "Smith plays a pretty good lead; he's pretty good at jumping around to show different emotions, so he kind of manipulates the audience that way. It's a very different role for him, though. Almost all of his other ones play up his...charisma," she decided.

"Eh, shush. You got that directly from a critic's review-"

"Did not!" she retorted indignantly, glaring hotly at Jason.

"Jason, don't be an ass," Nico chided, though he was laughing while doing so. The other looked down at his phone and lost some of his amusement.

"I think I have to go. Hazel texted me fifteen minutes ago asking if I could pick her up something. Her roommate got her sick," he explained. Come to think of it, Jason remembered Nico mentioning that earlier, on their way over.

"Do you want me to go with you?" Jason offered.  _Oh, wow, hope I don't make this too awkward..._

"It's fine, I'm just going to the McDonald's right off campus," Nico shook his head.

"I still haven't eaten. Do you guys want anything while we're out there?" Jason turned back to Piper and Leo.

"Hell yeah. Two Big Macs, I know he's gonna want one," Piper jutted her thumb at Leo, who made a face at her but didn't argue.

"Got it," Jason nodded. Nico handed him his jacket from the hook he'd left it on.

"Thanks, but do you think I'll need it?" he asked.

"Look outside," Nico motioned. Jason glanced out Piper's window and saw that there was a light spray of rain coming down.

"Wow, we should probably get going, then," Jason started, shutting the door behind them as he followed Nico out.

"Umm...so do you guys go to McDonald's a lot?" Jason asked.

"I do. Hazel's not such a fast food fan. She normally makes her own food; she's a really good cook, you know," he replied. "She grew up in New Orleans, so she knows a lot of good recipes. A lot of it's fried, though, so her dorm kitchen smells like grease for days," he chuckled.

"Heh, it must be great," Jason smiled. "Wait, so you all didn't grow up together?"

"Hazel's my half-sister," Nico clarified. "After my mother died, Dad remarried another woman, but Hazel's actually someone else's daughter. No idea whose," he shrugged nonchalantly. "But, you know, she didn't come to live with us until high school."

"Wow, you guys seem awfully close for only, like, knowing each other for that long."

"Yeah, I'd say we are. You know, I'm kind of glad I met her then and not earlier," he ventured, watching Jason with deep brown eyes. "I wouldn't have been ready for her anytime sooner. She would have felt like a replacement...sometimes I worry she still feels that way, though."

"She's never said anything like that to me. I don't think she thinks that," Jason reassured.

"I hope not. You said you have a sister?" he asked.

"Huh? Yeah, Thalia," he nodded. "She's pretty old -- well, older than me, anyway -- but she always gets it anyway, when I get stressed and stuff. She's ridiculously cool," he grinned widely, "leather jackets, nose piercings, the whole works."

"Yeah, she sounds pretty awesome. Do you guys keep in touch more now?"

"As much as we can. I haven't seen her since last year's spring break, though. She doesn't like coming home and dealing with our dad, so she stayed in New York this summer. I think she got a music gig there, but I haven't heard anything about her being in a band or anything, so I don't really know," he admitted.

"It happens," Nico agreed. "I go to the same university as Hazel and sometimes  _I_  don't even know what's going on with her, you know. Or she with me. It doesn't make us any less close."

"Yeah, I'm just looking forward to seeing her again." Jason's heart was still thumping like a bassline as he stared at the back of Nico's head, the golden arches in sight. He was definitely feeling something towards this guy, and he had no idea where it'd come from, but these things tended to grow pretty quickly with Jason, and he was a little nervous about what that might mean for their friendship. Especially if Nico weren't interested. But his heart was a bassline, and Nico the cryptic fingers plucking it into vibrations.

"Get out of the road, idiot!" Nico shouted, and Jason snapped back, realizing that he'd stopped in the middle of the crosswalk. He sprinted the rest of the way, flustered.

"God, who stops in the middle of the street?" Nico shook his head, exhaling.

"Sorry. I didn't get hit," Jason pointed out.

"You got lucky. Just...you know, try not to be stupid in the future." Jason held the door as they went into McDonald's, the warm scent of grease a happy greeting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hohoho, coming close to the end here! I think we've got about 2 chapters left. I will not, unfortunately, be able to update in the near future due to being away from technology for the next week, but hopefully will be able to publish the next chapter soon afterwards! Hope y'all enjoyed, feel free to leave comments and sorry for the future delay!!


	8. The Intimidation Factor and B-Plus Papers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nico and Jason go out and inevitably run into trouble, which leads to more trouble and- hey, what's that?

"Vanessa Carlton?"

"Mmh...she's great."

"But not your favorite."

"Not my favorite."

"Umm...look, can I at least get a genre?" Jason pleaded.

"No."

"Please? I'm cool flailing around for another ten minutes, but I'm seriously running out of ammo here.  _Please?"_

"Fine. It's classical," Nico replied smugly.

"Classical? Oh, God..."

For the last fifteen minutes or so, Jason had been trying to guess Nico's favorite artist while waiting for their food in the dimly ambient Il Alloro, Nico's favorite restaurant near NRU. The odds were not in Jason's favor. In the last couple of minutes, he had only just started guessing bands and musicians that Nico could even  _tolerate._  Nico didn't expect Jason to get it right -- he wasn't even sure if Jason  _knew_  the composer -- but he'd be damned if it wasn't amusing watching him try. _  
_

"...Bach?"

"Not at all."

"But he's, like, the king of classical music. You've gotta at least  _like_  him."

"Well, there's no denying he was a genius," Nico conceded, "and he left an incredible legacy. I...I guess I like the guy, you know, but not his music. Too many parts, too much movement."

"Beethoven?"

"He's nice. But no."

"Okay, well, that's pretty much every classical musician I- wait, no," Jason squeezed between his eyes, indigo streaks popping up around him as he strained to think. "That guy who wrote the river song."

"What river song? 'Moon River'?"

"No, it's an actual piano song. Gah, this is killing me...umm, I think he's Asian?"

_Asian pianist who wrote a "river" song popular enough for Jason to know...not Hisaishi, he doesn't have anything about a river, unless it's from "Spirited Away"..._

"Can you be any more specific?" Nico pressed. "Anything else he's written?"

"Sorry, I don't know anything else by him. My dormmate was playing his music. I think it was like, "The River in You" or something?"

Nico pursed his lips thoughtfully. "...wait. Yiruma?"

"That's it!" Jason exclaimed.

"Ten points to me. The song is "River Flows in You," and he's Korean," Nico corrected, smile curving wryly. "And no. Nice guess, though."

"That's all I've got, man. Who is it?"

"George Gershwin."

"George Gershwin," Jason repeated, shaking his head. "I never would've gotten that."

"Do you know him?" Nico raised his eyebrows.

"I feel like I've heard of him? What'd he write?"

"Well, one of his more famous songs is 'Rhapsody in Blue.'"

"Yeah, I've heard of him. No idea what he actually sounds like, though."

"I'll show you." Nico had his hand in his back pocket around his phone when the food showed up, in all of its aromatic glory.

"The grilled guinea hen," the waitress smiled a little tersely, placing the dish in front of Jason, "and your gnocchi."

 _"Grazie,"_ Nico mumbled, noticing the faint, uncertain trembling in her hands as she set down his pasta. He could tell from looking at it that the pieces were thicker than normal.  _New cook? ...eh, the oxtail will save it. It smells good._ He could feel waves of yellow-green anxiety rolling off of the waitress. "It looks great," he added graciously, and she smiled briefly as she drew away. He looked back at Jason, studying the other.

"So anyway, Gershwin. Think I'll get yours?" he challenged, grinning with the side of his mouth.

"Well, I dunno. Do you know anything past the '80s?" Jason taunted lightly.

"Hmm...Coldplay."

"Really?" Jason stared blankly. Nico frowned, unsure what he meant; his aura had a couple flashes of yellow-orange, the color of mild awe, but nothing else out of the ordinary.

"...was I that off?"

"No, no. They're- did you use your aura-thing on me, or am I just that...typical?" he sputtered.

"What? No! It's not like I can read minds or anything," Nico retorted, flustered but not angry. "I literally just guessed...don't tell me-"

"No, but they're, like, my second favorite," Jason admitted, green twinging around him.

"Beginner's luck," Nico dismissed, though inwardly satisfied. "I'm guessing you're a fan of rock, though?"

"You got it," he confirmed. 

"Doesn't really narrow it down much...Muse."

"Nope. Don't really know them."

"Okay...Radiohead."

"No, but you're getting warm. Like, you're already way warmer than I was five minutes in."

"Mhmm...is it The Beatles?" he guessed.

"It should be, but no. I  _was_  just trying to learn "Yesterday," though."

"Which were you trying to learn?"

"What? No, that's the name of the song," Jason laughed.

 _"Oh,"_ Nico realized, slightly annoyed with himself. "So wait -- is this on the guitar?"

"I wish. Mom started me on piano lessons when I was, like, seven, and I hated them. I got to quit at the end of eighth grade, but sometimes I play stuff I like. Guitar seems so much easier, though. Like, you just look up tabs and  _bam_ , it's a cover of the song just like that. You play any instruments?" Jason looked back up brightly.

"Yeah, I started on piano pretty early, too. I stuck with the lessons until the end of high school, you know, but I never got as good as I wanted to be. Actually playing for people made my hands shake too much," he chuckled, not particularly bitter. "I still play, though."

"Really? That's awesome! I never liked the whole playing-for-a-bunch-of-strangers gig either, but that's probably because I never actually tried to learn the pieces that well. I bet you'd show up everyone at Open Mic Night -- you should play one of your Gershwin dude's pieces!" Jason encouraged.

"As much as I'd like to let my twelve years of finger exercises and obnoxiously loud teachers come to fruition, as I mentioned less than thirty seconds ago, you know, I don't really want to lose control of my body from the elbows down in front of three to five hundred people."

"Dude, you'd be  _fine_. Hey, we could do a duet!" Jason burst out, crackling with bright yellow excitement, like thundercracks against his normal blueness.

"Jason, I really can't do performances," Nico sighed. "Sorry." And he genuinely was.

"Hey, no pressure," Jason assured him, yellow excitement gradually ebbing to an interesting orchid color. "But actually, are there any good duets out there, or do they all suck as much as the ones in fifth grade?"

"Yeah, there are some pretty good ones. I don't know any off the top of my head," Nico shrugged.

"We could always just do one for the hell of it. Maybe record it and put it on YouTube?" Jason suggested.

"Sure, if you can find a good one," Nico agreed, feeling a prick of excitement himself. "And if Epics doesn't drown us in exam review."

"Don't even start," Jason warned. "What the hell is Professor Chiron even thinking, four essays and twenty short answers?"

"It's fucking insanity," Nico grumbled, glaring darkly at his gnocchi as he spooned the broth-soaked, doughy pasta.

* * *

Fortunately, Il Alloro was about a thirty minute walk from campus. Unfortunately, neither Nico nor Jason had thought to take a car over to the small plaza. Also unfortunately, the sky had chosen that particular evening to dump its contents without much warning.

"Aren't you cold?" Nico glanced at Jason, whose shirt was clinging to him, adding unusual definition to- nope, Nico was  _not_  about to forget the difference between "glancing" and "ogling." Not today, suckers.

"Not really. I'm mostly just wet?" Jason shrugged. "It's only, like, fifty outside, right? That's fine."

"Are you sure? I could probably call Hazel," he offered, feeling slightly guilty for his comfortably warm jacket.

"Nah, no need to make her come out in this," Jason waved him off. "Fifty's  _fine_ , man."

"Maybe your fifty's different from mine or something," Nico snorted.

"Maybe I can actually sustain my body temperature," Jason shot back.

"Maybe I actually have normal temperature detection systems in my nervous system."

"Maybe your-"

Jason stopped mid-sentence, looking off to the distance as a smog of dirt-black clouded over his aura. Nico frowned, trying to follow his gaze as he heard a handful of distant voices.

_"-you were thinking? Huh?"_

_"-I wasn't-"_

_"-_ dare _look at me, you dirty-"_

Without speaking, both of them changed direction and headed towards the voices, which were sounding increasingly aggressive. Nico made out four figures crowded into a wide alley, one of them pinned by the throat to the wall by whoever was probably the leader of the three aggressors.

 _"-coming to a_ normal _bar, what the hell were you playing at? Talking to my brother? You think you can make him one of-"_

_"-I-"_

_Umph._ The sound of bone-hard knuckles hitting soft tissue.

"Don't  _interrupt me, you little shit. Your kind needs to be sent a- a_ message."

Nico heard another distinctive  _thud_  and a sharp, high wheeze. He could not afford to wait any longer to intervene; it was clear that these douches were going to pummel the living hell out of their prey, and he was definitely not going to let it happen.

_Jason and I could probably get them to leave just by showing up, but they could turn on us, and there are three of them and two of us, and I couldn't win a fistfight to save my life..._

_Looks like I have to use_ that.

"Jason," he turned slightly towards his friend, surprised by the amount of smoking black rage boiling around the other. "Will you get my back?"

"Give me the word and I'll throttle them," he growled. Nico nodded, turning back towards the scene and stopping about fifteen feet away from the confrontation.

He closed his eyes and, gritting his teeth, let the memories of fifth grade, second grade, eighth grade, tenth grade, the summer before college, kindergarten, and freshman year of college --  _freshman year --_  ensnare him, heavy and hot like a wolf's panting. Almost instantly, he felt black rage and sickly green fear snake towards him, peeling off of everything around him, crawling up his legs and twining around his arms like a second skeleton, puffing out around him in a crest of terror.

He glanced back at Jason, whose furious expression had ebbed slightly, replaced with something akin to nervousness. Nico couldn't blame him; he wasn't sure if the stockpile of energy was literally visible to other people, but it was almost impossible  _not_  to be influenced by the storming mass of fear and fury.

That was kind of the point.

Nico drew a sharp breath before his eyes snapped open, and he closed the distance to the other people, the wet pavement seeming to lose its last glints of light where he stepped.

 _"Hey, assholes,"_ he muttered, except his mutter came out more like a harsh-toned death threat, every word spewing dark energy. Wow, did Nico hate this "fear aura" thing. He already creeped people out enough as it was. He held the eyes of the main guy, who seemed to wither slightly under his glare.

"You talking to me?" he snarled, staring squarely back at Nico.

 _"Yeah, I'm talking to you, shitface. Sorry that you're in the wrong fucking place at the wrong fucking time. Here's the deal: you dickwads are gonna get your sorry asses out of here in the next ten seconds, or so help me God, I will_ flay _you. I will dump your limbs at the four corners of the earth, I will peel your torso like an onion, and I will_ love  _it."_

The two half-participants, looking extremely uncomfortable, started to edge away from the main antagonizer, whose grip had loosened considerably but hadn't completely let go of the terrified other guy. Nico took two more steps towards them, holding the aggressor's stare the entire time, stopping when their faces were about three feet apart.

 _"Get. Out,"_ he hissed, his hand moving towards his pocket as though he had a weapon, while his blackened aura flared up, clawing into everything nearby. 

That was all any of them needed -- the attacker dropped his target and bolted with his two cronies without another thought, while the victim scrambled away just as eagerly.

Immensely relieved, Nico forced himself to take a long breath, filling his lungs and holding the air for a moment as he collected his thoughts.

He despised everything about holding a "fear aura" like this -- it was heavy, awkward, and violent, and it affected him as much as the people around him. He suspected he had been much more terrified than any of the other parties involved. As he exhaled, with the sensation of peeling off a wet, woolen sweater, the excessive energy dissipated, rolling off of him in one gradual wave. He hoped it wouldn't hit anyone too hard, that would-

_Shit, right, this part._

_The inconvenient part._

"...Jason?" Nico muttered, and this time it really was a mutter, low and strengthless. As much as he enjoyed  _not_  being a living emblem of hatred/fear/all that shit, he didn't exactly have anything holding him up after all of it flurried straight out of him. His head felt like static.

"Whoa, Nico," he heard Jason say from somewhere, as warm hands gripped his sides. He realized he had pitched forward at some point, and was grateful for the arm that curled around his back and helped him slide down the brick behind them.

"Sorry," he mumbled, grimacing as a wave of nausea hit him. He was kind of relieved that Jason's arm didn't move. He had dealt with the aftereffects of holding that much undesirable energy (he could almost call it poisonous) before, and they hadn't been pretty. 

"You okay? You look really out of it," Jason noticed, jostling him lightly when he didn't respond. "Nico."

"Sorry," Nico repeated, feeling his hands shaking lightly. "I'm fine, really...it's a, an aura thing, you know, different energy and...stuff?"

"Oh, is that what that was? It was  _awesome,_ man. I thought you were just some secret badass or something, you scared them shitless!"

"Heh, good," he smirked weakly.

"No, I swear it got, like, three shades darker as soon as you...hold on, are you  _still_  cold?"

"Wha?...oh. No, not cold. I'm...it's the 'fear' part," Nico managed.

"I was gonna say, you've already got the winter gear on, man," Jason teased, though he still looked kind of worried as his grip tightened ever so slightly. "Listen, I'm gonna call Leo and Piper and see if they can pick us up. I think they were out tonight, but they probably wouldn't stay out past eleven, anyway. Just...hang tight, okay?"

"Got it," Nico nodded. He stared at the asphalt for a minute or two, while he waited for his insides to stop constricting each other, before glancing up at Jason. The other guy was talking into his phone in a low voice, his words vibrating and pleasantly hanging midair, like a hum. There was a lot of commotion in his aura -- Nico had probably never been so close before -- blue-tinged grey, light pinks, a little indigo and littler red, a subtle knot of black that Nico felt strangely accountable for  _(maybe you should have warned him ahead of time, about a lot of things, then he'd have known) (no, then he'd have been angrier, anyway)_ bright spring greens, and a prominent dark, purplish rose that seemed almost tangible in its form.

 _God, I'm such a sucker,_ Nico thought wearily, a final concession as he drifted off against the wall.

* * *

 _"...moderation, but I didn't know he really couldn't handle his liquor. We- yes, I told him it'd be- I know, I know. I know what alcohol poisoning looks like, Piper, he's gonna be fine,"_ Jason assured, voice still a low buzz in his cell phone.  _"Just not a hundred percent right now. Will- okay- okay, fine, you've got it. Yeah, see you."_

"Hey, Jason?" Nico blinked half-awake. His face felt warm and half-dry, which he didn't understand for a moment until he realized it had fallen onto Jason's shoulder at some point. His shoulder, which smelled like the rest of him --  _good._

"How are you?" Jason asked, studying him with concern.

"Umm. I don't feel like the life just got sucked out of me, if that's what you're asking," he smiled slightly, wry as usual. "Only half of it."

"Well, that's...better."

"Yeah. How long was I out of commission?"

"I dunno what time it is." Jason pressed the home button of his phone and raised his brows in surprise. "Wow, it's almost eleven thirty. So about forty-five minutes, I guess?"

"Shit," Nico grumbled, "and it's been raining this entire time?"

"Has it?" Jason shrugged.

"Listen, I'm s-"

"Hey, don't be sorry. I called forty-five minutes ago and Piper literally just got back to me. Not your bad."

"We're both soaked," Nico sighed, annoyed.

"Eh, we'd be wet if we walked home anyway. And it doesn't matter, since it's so warm outside," Jason added flippantly.

Nico rolled his eyes. "Yeah, totally." Jason flicked him on the shoulder in response, and they sat amiably for a couple of minutes, both staring out at the lazy traffic.

"...so Nico, don't take this the wrong way or anything, but why'd you do the, uh...your aura 'thing' for that guy?"

Nico shifted uncomfortably, even though he didn't sense anything but curiosity from Jason.  _Wow, we're doing this now, huh? ...I mean, it's not a bad time, I guess._

"Well, they were going to beat him up if we didn't do something then," he pointed out.

"Right, and if I could do, like, whatever it is you did, then I would've done the same thing," Jason agreed. "But was there, like..."

"A reason?" Nico finished.

"Yeah, I dunno. You don't have to answer that, sorry," he added, glancing away awkwardly.

"Well, did  _you_  have a reason?" Nico replied, surprised by his own brazenness.

"I- hey, I asked first," Jason countered.

"You did," Nico agreed with a short huff. "Okay, well, you know how my freshman year kind of sucked?"

"Right."

"Yeah, well, there were a lot of little things that made it suck," he grimaced slightly, "and then there was one big thing, too...please don't get weirded out or anything?"

"Of course not," Jason said adamantly.

"Okay...there was this senior who had it in for me, because he was on the same team as the guy I roomed with for the first semester. It might've been football? My roommate got the entire team kind of against me, which didn't really matter because I didn't have a reason to talk to most of them. He kind of had a reason, though, you know, my stupid freshman self wouldn't even talk to him to split a pizza...anyway, I had Hazel over when he was supposed to be gone, but he was still in the dorm, so he overheard us and told a couple of people on the team because, you know,  _he_  got freaked out, and so this senior guy heard.

"So I was going to turn in my term paper for my Civs class, and this huge senior was hanging around in the hallway I had to go through. I was trying to get the papers together to staple them, you know, classic nerd mistake, so I was a pretty easy target," Nico smirked mirthlessly. "I didn't even fight him when he took it, because I was afraid of ripping it, and I didn't have time to print another one...I think his name was Eros. He let a pretty big mob form around us, then told me that I could get it back if I told the crowd who I...'liked,' for lack of a better word. I tried telling them Annabeth Chase, because plenty of guys like her and there were already a couple rumors that I had a crush on her, but he told me he already knew, and my Civs teacher was locking the door, you know, so I went ahead and told them th- told them who. I got an eighty-eight on the paper, you know," he added flatly, "mostly because the teacher wanted more fucking book sources.

"And that's only relevant because...uhm, it...I had a crushonPercyJackson," he blurted.

Jason blinked blankly for a moment before whistling, sounding impressed. "That magnificent bastard," he shook his head in wonder.

"Tell me about it," Nico groaned. "Anyway, that's the 'reason' I had to do something, I guess."

"What, did you see him and ask yourself What Would Percy Do? Because I'm pretty sure that moral compass only points north half of the time..."

"Pffh," Nico snorted, "no, I'm pretty much over that. I guess...I just saw myself in the guy getting pummeled, you know?"

"Yeah, I think I do," Jason nodded softly, aura bubbling a flustered lavender for reasons Nico couldn't fathom.

"...you don't seem that surprised," Nico noticed, hoping to the high heavens that the rumor mill hadn't carried that one around past freshman year.

"I don't? I- hmm...I guess I might have, like, guessed subconsciously?" Jason shrugged nonchalantly. He paused, mouth spreading into a small but incredibly genuine smile. "I'm really glad that you told me, though. Really glad."

"Yeah...same," Nico smiled contentedly, sighing peaceably. He waited a few moments before speaking again. "So your-"

"OVER H- shit, they passed us," Jason grumbled, moving his arm out from around Nico's back to stand up. He offered Nico a hand and pulled the lanky guy up, catching him by the shoulder to steady him. "Easy, you good?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," Nico shook the fizzing out of his head stubbornly, following Jason out to the side of the road.

"OVER HERE!" Jason shouted, waving one of his arms. As the sole car on the road kept driving further away, he took out his phone and started dialing a number when the car swung around in a U-turn and blew down the street towards them again.

"Careful,  _Piper, she doesn't turn that easily!"_ Leo's voice screeched from somewhere down the road. The car slowed slightly and pulled in front of them, rocking forward violently as it came to an abrupt stop.

"Oh yeah -- act drunk," Jason muttered to Nico.

_Drunk? Great, I've never been drunk in my life. So, slur my words and stagger?_

"Jason Grace, I have no idea what you were thinking, but I am  _this_  close to slugging you," Piper snapped, sticking her head out the window. "You  _know_  how seriously the university takes underage drinking!"

"What are you talking about? Neither of us are underage," Jason frowned.

"I'mactually notwenty-one yet," Nico provided.  _Shit, maybe I shouldn't have said that._

"Get. In," she seethed, glaring hawkishly at Jason as they both slunk into the back. Leo made a small snickering noise from the passenger seat just as Piper pressed the gas pedal a little too hard, and the car shot forward.

The ride back to campus was mercifully brief, with next to no traffic on the roads and a relatively short distance to cover. Apparently, Jason was to repay Piper and Leo for their trouble with the delivery food order of their choosing, which Nico felt guilty about and silently resolved to pay Jason back for, considering that the turn of events was his own doing. He was amused, however, with the bright red twists circling around Piper and Leo, which seemed to throb every time they exchanged looks.

"Make sure he gets to his room," Piper barked as soon as the car stopped in front of Nico's dorm. They thanked them both immensely for the ride, Jason laying it on especially thick for Piper, before Nico fake-staggered across the lawn to the door, keyed in, waited until the door swung shut behind Jason, and straightened up instantly.

"Nice acting," Jason laughed, eyes swinging across the entryway and common area. "Dude, you guys need to get rid of that couch."

"What makes you say that, the food stains or the foam coming out of the sides?"

Jason laughed again. "Hey, I wonder why Leo didn't come in with us."

"Mmh...you know, I'm not sure if Leo's not coming back to his dorm room in the near future."  _I'll be damned if those two aren't getting it on as we speak._ _  
_

Jason peered out the window cautiously. "They're still parked out there."

"Yeah, I wouldn't go out there unless you want an eyeful or an earful," Nico advised dryly.

"Agreed. So can I see whatever super-rare comic Leo was going crazy about last week?"

"Of course," Nico grinned, leading Jason up the half-mildewed stairs to his dorm room.  _Good thing I did laundry. Even if it was for the first time in three weeks._   _  
_

He dug around in one of the jam-packed suitcases in his closet, pulling out the 700th and last issue of "The Amazing Spider-Man" while trying not to think too much about the fact that Jason Grace was in his dorm room, which might have been trivial if he'd had any non-family-members in his room since the start of sophomore year. He handed it to him, studying his reaction expectantly.

"...I mean, it looks like a normal issue to me," Jason looked back up at Nico confusedly.

"What were you expecting?" Nico asked, equally confused.

"I dunno, maybe shinier or something?"

"Pffch," Nico stifled an enormous laugh, "no, it's a variant issue. It's unusual because it's like an alternate ending, you know, and Parker dies in this one. Look." He took back the issue and flipped through, combing for a page towards the end, and handed it back to Jason.

"Whoa. I think I'd like the original better," Jason remarked. "That's still pretty awesome, though."

"Thanks." Nico waited for Jason to finish looking it over, and replaced it in the stone-heavy suitcase, zipping it carefully closed.

"...well, I should probably go," Jason rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. "Is everything good over here?"

"Yeah, I'm good." 

"Okay. Do you want me to get the lights?"

"Uh, no. I was going to change."

"Oh." Jason's neck-rubbing turned into an uncomfortably aggressive massage as he made for the door, just as a tangly mess of red, fuchsia and light purple exploded around him. "Well, uh, bye?"

"See you," Nico replied, trying to hide his immense confusion. Only when the door was securely shut did he commence pacing the minuscule perimeter of his room, kneading his forehead in frustrated befuddlement.

He was missing something.

 _Eugh, he looked like some kind of Valentine's day merchandise disaster. Red_ always _means some kind of...physical attraction. Screw it, red's the color of sex, anyone could tell you that. And the lavender is embarrassment, but not in the actually-ashamed-of-yourself way, that's dark green..._

_Maybe when I said that, he started picturing some girl and got embarrassed about it?_

Even as he considered it, Nico found the idea a little farfetched. In the month or so that they'd been hanging out, he'd never seen or heard anything to suggest Jason had a thing for anyone, although any inklings could have been drowned out by Piper and Leo's bright red fireworks for each other.  _Those dorks._

He stopped and stared tiredly into the mirror on the back of his door, holding his own earthy dark eyes for a moment before dropping his gaze. He honestly didn't know how Jason  _wasn't_  getting it on with some girl. He was plenty attractive, extraordinarily considerate, intelligent, and had a heart of gold about five sizes bigger than the norm. He was just an all-around really, really good guy.

Nico looked back up and felt his heart stop in his throat. Or chest. Somewhere in that vicinity.

His entire head was engulfed in a cloud of glaring magenta.

Whoa.  _Whoa._

_That's...some color, there._

He considered the formation nervously. He had been clearly thinking about Jason when it showed up, so it clearly had to do with him. Well, with his feelings towards Jason. Which he wasn't even sure about at this point.

_I guess I'd be lying to say they're...platonic._

_...who am I kidding? I am_ enamored  _with that guy._

 _...what the hell am I_ doing?  _What the hell are you doing, Nico. You can't just decide to have a thing for your best friend. Not that_ I  _had anything to do with the "decision."_

 _What the_ hell _am I doing?_

Nico let out a sigh that came out as more of a hiss, thunking down on the ground right where he was standing.  _Well, it was nice knowing you, Jason. Sure am glad_ you _can't see what I'm thinking. Or feeling. Whatever._

_Hold on._

An idea crossed Nico's mind that he had been venomously chasing off ever since the first time it had popped up. A prohibited idea. He couldn't  _afford_  to think that way -- except that this time, there was too much behind the thought for him to fend it off again.

For the last two or three weeks, Jason's aura had been streaking with  _exactly_  the same color that Nico was now watching passively. The color, which Nico was guessing showed infatuation, was most prominent when Nico himself was talking to him. Actually, as of late, it had been getting ridiculously gaudy. He got flustered and sometimes nervous around Nico, he had been perfectly relaxed about Nico being gay...

_No way. That can't be right, Jason dated Piper, he's strai-_

Except Nico wasn't so sure about that anymore.

_"I guess...I just saw myself in the guy getting pummeled, you know?"_

_"Yeah, I think I do."_ Cue the pale purple.

Nico wasn't one for being hopeful, even reasonably optimistic, and frankly he had no  _idea_  what part of himself would seem  _remotely_  attractive to Jason. But however pessimistic his reasoning was, Nico was not the type to ignore logic, and he felt like it was hitting him over the head repeatedly with a Whack-a-Mole hammer. For Pete's sake, that moment just a few minutes ago made perfect (and extremely embarrassing) sense in this context.

He wondered if there had been any red streaks before.

He wondered if  _he'd_  had any red streaks before. Well, minus whatever chaos he spewed out around Percy back in freshman year.

Wow,  _I'm an idiot._

He thought about how their friendship ("friendship"?) could play out in the future. He considered Jason's view momentarily. And then, with a pronounced sigh, he came to a conclusion.

_Jason isn't going to do anything about this, because he probably has no idea how I feel, I have no idea how to show it, and he is one hundred percent the type of person to not risk the friendship by asking me anything..."weird."_

_But I'm fairly certain we both want this. He's still best friends with Piper, too, so even if things didn't work out, he would probably be willing to salvage whatever we still had left._

_We could always keep on like we've been doing...but if we both want the same things, that doesn't make the most sense. Plus, if he keeps having "red" moments or whatever, it's gonna get pretty awkward pretty quickly._

And so there, at 11:49 pm EST, slouched on the ground in front of his door, Nico resolved to act.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ;D
> 
> So next chapter is going to be the last! I'm thinking it's either going to be in Jason's POV or flip-flop between the 2 narratives, but I honestly haven't even figured out what's gonna happen. I won't know until 5:15 am halfway through next week, probably.  
> I doubt I'll have time directly after finishing this, but I'm certainly considering writing a couple one-shots in the future when I have some spare time! Honestly, taking a couple requests might be fun...^w^  
> As always, thanks a motherload for reading, and feel free to leave any comments below!! :D


	9. The Color of Alive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dudes talk feelings. This snapshot draws to a close.

Jason's thoughts were far from Dante's chanting cranes and lamenting shadows that day.

He was nervous. He'd gotten the text last night -- one of those texts that is so brief and heavy that you can't stop it from nesting in your thoughts.

_> >[10:45 pm] Can you stick around after Epics tomorrow? I need to ask you something_

Yep, he was screwed. Well, as far as he knew, anyway. No one that he knew of would just shoot a message saying  _"I need to ask you something"_ unless the matter at hand was pretty serious. And that left Jason with two distinctly undesirable possibilities. Either Nico was troubled or angry about something that Jason clearly wasn't equipped to talk about, considering he had no idea what it was-

_-or he's figured that I'm- that I have- he- fuck it._

That was the other undesirable reasoning that Jason dreaded, considering that he was not equipped to talk about _this_ , either, _'this'_ referring to Jason's growing well of infatuation for Nico, and he'd be damned if he weren't in too deep already. It ( _this_ ) had snuck up on him, a dribble through oblivious mortar, and yeah. He was in too deep. Er...for having never actually mentioned the matter with the other party, anyway.

> _Helen I saw, for whom so many ruthless_  
>  _Seasons revolved; and saw the great Achilles,_  
>  _Who at the last hour combated with Love._  
>    
>  _Paris I saw, Tristan; and more than a thousand_  
>  _Shades did he name and point out with his finger,_  
>  _Whom Love had separated from our life._

To be honest, reading about the special place in the Inferno for the lustful wasn't exactly helping with Jason's mental dilemma, either, especially because he didn't see too much wrong with half of the guys mentioned by name. Not that he would reference  _Dante's Inferno_  while contemplating his crush, anyway...crush. He had never been attracted to a guy before, but that was what it was, he figured.

During the last couple of homework-saturated nights, Jason had been avoiding the topic in his head, although it inevitably came back to him every night. Everything was new as pennies, glowing, and he was excited and afraid. 

_If he's, uh, figured it_ _out, I hope he's not gonna be wigged out or anything..._

>>[10:51pm] sure, see u then!

The end of class couldn't come quickly enough, but it came, and then Jason was leaning against the brick outside, scoping the concrete doorway for the first time and silently wondering how they buffed the stuff of sidewalks into such smooth curls. Nico was out a few minutes later, although he seemed to hesitate halfway through the sculpted frame.

"Hey there," Jason prompted him, hiding the nervousness in his voice sufficiently.

"Oh, hi, Jason," Nico blinked back at him, seeming to refocus. "Thanks for waiting. Can we- do you wanna just walk?"

"Huh?"

"I mean, I don't think I can sit still, but I don't have anywhere to go, so can we just walk?"

Jason's heartbeat accelerated in his chest. "Yeah, sure. Lead the way."

And that was exactly how they spent the most of the next ten minutes -- just walking. There weren't that many people out, and most of the people there were heading someplace else. Jason had tried to initiate conversation once, but halfway through his "So, how've you been liking  _The Inferno_?", Nico just shook his head, expressionless, and whatever nerve Jason had summoned plummeted somewhere into his lower abdomen. And so they just walked, in silence, Jason having no idea what to expect. He noticed miserably that Nico's maroon sweatshirt brought out the yellow-copper in his skin. Or maybe he'd just regained some color -- Jason had no idea about color theory, anyway.

Nico finally stopped, right off the edge of the freshman quad, and Jason watched his shoulders rise with a breath before he turned around and looked Jason in the eye for a moment, saying nothing, and there was so much there. Then Nico broke it, looking sideways as color rose to his ears.

"Jason, I'm not sure I've been interpreting things right," he began, and Jason's heart kicked it into overdrive as he gulped, still trying to hold  _some_ composure, "so bear with me if I've got this wrong...see, the thing is- well, first of all, you're my best friend. Period. I mean, Hazel's my sister, so not counting her. And I wouldn't trade that for anything -- the past three months have been better for me than the past two  _years._  And, you know, you're amazing, like one of the best guys I've ever met.

"But I realized I- I think you're amazing in a way I can't pass off as 'best friends' anymore. You know, in a more-than-friends way." He paused, and the words didn't fully process in Jason's head. "And I don't want to be presumptuous, but I wasn't sure if you, you know, might...reciprocate?"

Jason didn't notice his mouth drop open as he gaped soundlessly for a few moments.

"...right. Umm..." Nico jerked around like he was about to dart, with Jason still frozen in place; then he stopped himself, swung his backpack down and pulled the zipper half-open; then without even looking into his bag, he zipped it shut again and swung it back over one shoulder, straightening and staring back at Jason expectantly, warily. And he stood there for a good minute as Jason's systems rebooted, the silence a growing rift between them.

"-The Strokes," Jason burst, cracking through the silence. "They're my favorite band."

"What?" Nico frowned, expression apprehensive.

"I love cats, my birthday's July 1st, I love cheeseburgers but not fast food because the buns suck. My scar is from biting a stapler, my friends from high school and I got matching tattoos, uh, the  _Iliad_ was my favorite thing we've read in Epics, four months of when I dated Piper was because I didn't know how to break it off, oh shit, that sounds bad-" _  
_

"Jason, you lost me," Nico interrupted, looking somewhere between concerned and mind-fuddled.

"Sorry. I guess what I'm trying to say is, uh, I think you're amazing, too, in the not-just-friends way too, so I was trying to- I- I want to get to know, like,  _know_ know you, and the best thing you could give me is the opportunity to see more of you, because I want to know all of your amazing parts-"

 _-_ wow  _that sounds dirty-_

"-so, uh...yeah. Totally reciprocated."

"Oh." Nico looked mildly bewildered and more alert than Jason had ever seen him, and they both stared evenly at each other before Nico swung his backpack from his shoulder a second time, unzipping it and gingerly pulling out a clear plastic bag filled with  _oh my god. He got me brownies._

"These are your favorites, right?" Nico blushed fiercely, thrusting the bag out towards him. Jason moved to take them, except then he was still moving and, not entirely sure what he was doing, wrapped his arms around the other guy. A moment's hesitation was a held breath between them, and then Nico's arms moved higher than he'd expected, one between his shoulder blades and the other firmly guiding his head down

and then they both connected.

Their limbs were suddenly irrelevant as Jason was overtaken with the tender dryness of Nico's lips, the smell of olives and overturned earth, the warm air brushing against his cheek, the quivering against his own lips' tingling nerves, his quaking heartbeat, and as he pulled away, everything seemed two shades more alive.

"I hope that'll tide you over. You know, with all my 'amazing parts' and all," Nico snickered, as his smirk filled into a broad, lopsided grin that looked too big for his face. 

"Tide me over," Jason repeated in disbelief. "...did you know?"

"Know what?"

"That I was  _that_  stuck on you."

"Jason, I'm not a mind reader," Nico shook his head, still smiling strikingly, "but I saw enough of my own feelings in you to put my eggs in that basket."

"Uhuh." Jason's heart was an orchestra and it was in the middle of a hundred-stringed concerto. "Hey, d'ya wanna go get Panera?"

"You mean bread?"

"Yep."

"That depends. McDonald's tonight?"

Jason glowed with the prospect of  _tonight_. "Sold."

* * *

"Well, are you not comfortable just telling them when you see them next?"

"...not really. I dunno, I don't want it to make it awkward."

"You're not gonna make it  _awkward_ , Jason, they're your friends. But you don't have to be that direct about it. You could bring me up, you know, mention it then?"

"I mean, yeah, I guess so. I dunno. It's just kinda hard to drop in casually?"

"Yeah, I get what you mean...you know, I could come with you."

"Really?" Jason perked up.

"Well, yeah," Nico scoffed, "of course. It'll be easier to show them anyway, right?"

"Well, yeah," Jason grinned back at him. "I guess if we ease into it, they'll figure it out."

"Exactly."

Jason plopped back onto his mattress, resting his head over his arms as he stared up at the ceiling of his dorm room. He eventually glanced over at Nico peeling through the last pages of the  _Divine Comedy_ , leaning at ease against the edge of his bed, and couldn't help a buttery smile welling up.

Nico looked up at him with a small, slightly irritated huff. "Alright, what are you thinking?"

"Just how much more...chill this is. Compared to my other relationships." Jason regarded him with the warmest feelings (and wondered if Nico could see them). "I mean, I liked them, but they took a lot of energy. Not like...this."

"You know, I wouldn't know the difference. I haven't actually dated anyone," Nico replied quietly. "But 'this' feels much easier than I had ever expected. Not that we're even on Day Two or anything."

Jason could only smile wider, shuffling around the base of his bed and holding the salvaged bag of brownies (he wasn't sure if these were old or the ones he'd been given --  _the ones he'd been given_ ) out towards Nico. Without a word, the darkened other grabbed a full handful, crushing them together slightly in his grip, Jason noticed wryly. He was more excited by that handful than the entire fudge bag.

"Nico, what color am I?" he asked suddenly, midway through a chewed silence.

Nico contemplated him. "...you're kind of a powder blue, but with more of a sheen to it. Like the color of thick ice over water."

"What about you?"

"Mustard."

"Just mustard?"

"It's kind of straightforward."

"True."

"What did you think when I told you?" Nico asked, a comfortable smile curling around his lips.

"I don't think I really got it," Jason admitted, "but I pretty much took you at face value. I mean, you  _did_ kinda save all our asses -- I would have believed just about anything."

"Hey, did you see that someone wrote 'gullible' on your ceiling?"

"Ha, ha."

"That's actually really...kind of admirable. I wish I could trust people that easily."

"It doesn't always give me the best judgment, though. I've had it blow up in my face a couple of times."

"And same here. You can make them work for it all you want, but in the end trust will land you jobless in the Labyrinth."

"They didn't deserve you there, anyway. I heard your stuff, and you were too good for them."

"I'm flattered, but I was inarguably average," Nico shook his head honestly. 

" _Nothing_ about you is average, Nico di Angelo."

"You really are shameless, you know," Nico muttered, and Jason watched with satisfaction as his face went red. "Fine. I'll be 'above average' and you can be 'exceeds expectations'."

"Well, if we're talking Harry Potter here, I hope I can get an 'Outstanding' in at least  _one_ subject."

"Mmh. So do I. You'll have to show me sometime," Nico shot back smugly.

Jason burned red.

* * *

**_*****_ **

* * *

 

_Dear Bianca,_

_Happy 23rd!! I guess it's not a huge birthday, but I figured one more person at the party wouldn't hurt, right? I wish I could actually be there, obviously, but I've got no idea where "there" is, so forget that. I'm sure if you're alive as some other person, you've got people all around you, anyway. You'd only be seven, right? That's probably nice (it's got to be easier than writing this ~~damn~~ darn lab report!)_

_I think I've changed a lot this year. The first half or so was more of the same old, and it was pretty lonely. I wasn't even sure about coming back to New Rome, but then I realized I didn't have much of anywhere else to go, so it was worth another shot, right? And the thing is, I was ready to try again, but I didn't think anyone would actually_ want _to meet me, halfway through college and all. I also was getting a D in Molecular Microbiology for the first couple of weeks -- the professor gave us no time to write our lab reports or even to do the lab he assigned us, so no one had a decent experimental design and my discussion was absolute ~~shi~~ crap. I'm actually going back to writing another lab report for that class when I get back to the dorm -- I pulled it up to a B- but I'm hoping to get it up to at least a B+ before the end of the semester, which is coming up pretty quickly. My Macromolecules professor is pretty chill, though -- she talks about doing archery with her kids sometimes, so I bet you guys would have gotten along great._

 _Anyway, I wasn't in a great place during the first few weeks back at NRU, although having Hazel there made it_ loads  _better. (Don't worry, I wasn't anywhere near where I was freshman year.) And having Dad and his fiancé calling every weekend was, and is still, an enormous pain in the butt. I had the same gig I had last year at the Labyrinth, except I got laid off a few months ago, but that kind of stuff happens. I hate mixing pop music, anyway. But around that time, Hazel brought her friend Jason over, and I'm STILL not really sure how it happened, but he kept coming back and we were in the same Epics class, so we became loose friends. Then I saw that he was going to die and intervened, so we ended up talking a lot and kind of exchanging stories, I guess, so then we became pretty close friends. There was a fight with some idiots that I ended up having to scare off (you know, the full works) and I ended up coming out to him then, which he was totally fine with, but then I noticed an unusual, really bright color in his aura, and I only figured out what it was when I watched it popping up around me. I think you might have mentioned something about magenta being one of the best colors to have, come to think of it, but I had stopped trying to read people's auras when I stopped talking to them, so I wasn't really thinking about it that much. Plus, you might have been talking about painting again -- I never was sure if it was colors or_ colors _with you._

_So I ended up taking charge and asking him if he liked me or not -- I was so scared I almost made a run for it!! But man, am I glad I waited. We've been dating for about two months now, and he's the most ridiculously nice guy I've ever met, ten times how nice Percy is. And I know you must think it's totally cheesy, but everything's just brighter, and I have no idea if the world's changed or just my eyes, but it's the best difference. I don't know how long we'll last as a couple, but I think I'll always have him as a friend, hopefully as a best friend, and same with me for him -- that might be kind of naïve of me, but his optimism has been making a dent in me. Seriously, though, I'm happy so often, my aura's permanently brightened, and his has been getting yellower, too. We've also been staining each other, so we both have been tinting kind of green. It's pretty great._

_I won't keep you too much longer, with the birthday cakes beckoning and all, but I do want to say that life in general's been just as good (well, maybe not, but "life in general" isn't making out with me at one in the morning) I chanced upon Percy and Annabeth a couple of weeks ago back at the Labyrinth (everything seems to come back there, huh?) and we've hung out a couple times since then on campus. I think Percy might be thinking about proposing to her...man, are they both lucky to have known each other so long. Hazel's been trying to get me and Frank to spend more time together, too, and weirdly enough, it's been working. He might be a little more timid than I normally tend towards, but he's a good guy; and then through Jason I've met Piper and Reyna, and basically re-met Leo, and all of it's been awesome. Everything really is brighter here, Bianca, and I wouldn't say it's thanks to anyone, but it's the northern lights over here, and I haven't been happier in all the time you've been Elsewhere._

_Stay safe, wherever you are. Happy birthday, and I love you more._

_~Nico_

 

Nico flicked the wheel of the lighter he only touched twice a year, sparking a tiny wisp that burned through the letter, embers and ashes blowing away indiscriminately. He let whatever cinders remained fall upon his sister's grave, sighing deeply and contentedly. It was the first time in seven years he hadn't cried on November 6th.

He traced over the inscription on her tombstone with two fingers, the grooves a labyrinth of their own. For a moment, he lent his thoughts to the dead, and then remembered all things quiet and alive. He stepped away, pocketing the plain lighter, and went on.

Six or seven minutes later, he was inside his dented, scuffed Volvo that smelled as musty as he did, staring out the windshield pensively, before he smiled slightly and started the car.

He was in Jason's room, two months earlier, eyes trickling over Dante's last pages, and settling, flickering, on the last line. He thought of saying something to Jason, but wasn't ready to come across as  _quite_  that much of a sap. Besides, some thoughts he wanted for himself. _It's a nice thought_ , he thought tranquilly,  _to end on._

_l'amor che move il sole e l'altre stelle._

The Love that moves the sun and the other stars.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well...that's all she wrote!
> 
> I have had an absolute motherload of fun writing these goobers, and I couldn't be happier to have spent the time I did working on this fella!! You all have been amazingly supportive and encouraging, and I'm überhappy that anyone is enjoying my work!! :D  
> So, hope you all enjoyed the read!! Feel free to leave comments below (it makes my day to hear from y'all!!) many, many thanks to those of you who stuck through the entire thing, and I hope to get the chance to write for y'all again soon!!! ^u^


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